Thanks for the kind words. I write about Civilization this way because, as a scientist (I teach Biology) I noticed long ago that there was nothing akin to it in nature. It, civilization, is an entirely human construct. Culture is what comes when civilization is allowed to exist and grow. There is time to produce religion, art, philosophy, and all manner of works simply because there is time for some people to be free from food-gathering and child-care responsibilities, at least part of the time. The scientist side of me does acknowledge that we can't know everything by scientific means, but things like this are fairly clear. Whatever we humans do in terms of politics, spirituality, art, etc., we must remember that we are not that far removed from the jungle. A few hundred generations is not much in the overall picture, and we still have to look at our behavior in what may now seem like rather primitive terms. A civilization/society/culture that can cure diseases and fly to other planets still can't seem to get its members to stop killing each other over territory as if we were bighorn sheep.

Chet