Notes

  1. . Solomon H.Katz, “Evolutionary Perspectives on Purpose and Man,” Zygon  8(1973):325–40.
  2. . Arturo Rosenblueth and Norbert Wiener, “Purposeful and Non‐purposeful Behavior,” in Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist, ed. Walter Buckley (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 232–37; Richard Taylor, “Comments on a Mechanistic Conception of Purposefulness,” in ibid., pp. 226–31.
  3. . Paul D.MacLean, “The Brain's Generation Gap: Some Human Implications,” Zygon  8(1973):113–27.
  4. . However, this propensity and ability to explain unknown events is a characteristic of all humans. Adler has suggested that this need to explain, which is directly associated with human purpose, is a fundamental element and/or drive of the human psyche which accounts for such diverse phenomena as psychotherapy and the placebo effect (H. M.Adler and V. B. 0.Hammett, “The Doctor‐Patient Relation Revisited: An Analysis of the Placebo Effect,” Annals of Internal Medicine  781973:595–602; and Crisis, “Conversion, and Cult Formation: An Examination of a Common Psychosocial Sequence,” American Journal of Psychiatry 130{1973}:861–72).
  5. . This fits with Dr. Kübler‐Ross's comment that truly religious people do not have difficulty dealing with either their own death or that of very close relatives (see Elisabeth Kübler‐Ross, “Humanizing Terminal Care” [Twentieth Summer Conference, Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, Star Island, New Hampshire, July 28–August 4, 1973]).
  6. . It is interesting to note with regard to this paper that Professor Wallace and I have worked together for the last five years at the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute. I had previously read his 1956 paper on revitalization movements, and decided to read his other papers on the subject, since I planned to include a serious discussion of the possibility of such movements in our own society. Much to my surprise I found that one of his major papers on the topic was presented at a conference of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science in 1961 and published later that year by IRAS as Religious Revitalization: A Function of Religion in Human History and Evolution. However, contrary to his conclusion there, that it is unlikely such events could occur in our society, I have tentatively reached the conclusion that they are far more probable now than ever before.
  7. . Anthony F. C. Wallace, Religion: An Anthropological View (New York: Random House, 1966).
  8. . Ibid. p. 158. This and other quotations from Wallace's book are reprinted by permission of the publisher.
  9. . Ibid. p. 159.
  10. . A quotation concerning “Watergate” illustrates this situation in our present society in the United States: “The Watergate subversion was far more than ‘just politics.’ It was a sinister attempt by arrogant, unprincipled and ambitious men to destroy gradually the two‐party system and the democratic processes as we have established them in this country over a period of almost 200 years…. It was some of the President's most trusted aides who established a Department of Dirty Tricks. It was they who hired stupid lackeys, supervised by a former CIA agent of idiot morality, to burgle, break in and bug. It was they who taught clean‐cut, handsome younger men to equate dissent with treachery, to despise the press, to treat the opposition party as 'the enemy.' It was they who substituted hate and vindictiveness for competition and fair play in the 1972 presidential campaign. To accuse one candidate of being a homosexual, to accuse another of consorting with a prostitute in the back of a car, to steal mail, to compromise the FBI and the CIA, to besmirch the hard‐earned reputations of such men as L. Patrick Gray and Richard Helms by pressuring them to commit or approve deeds of dubious legality these are the tactics of a police state, and their practitioners are the possessors of a fascist mentality, whether they know it or not…. There is no room in any American administration for a Department of Dirty Tricks. That bag belongs to political tyrants who have no faith in the values and traditions of the country” (L. Shearer, ed., “Intelligence Reports.” Parade, July 22, 1973, p. 10).
  11. . Wallace, Religion (n. 7 above), p. 159.
  12. . John Platt, “The First World Century: Optimizing Man on Earth” (Twentieth Summer Conference, Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, Star Island, New Hampshire, July 28–August 4, 1973).
  13. . See Lisa A. Richette, “A Special Savor of Nobility: Confronting the Dehumanization in Children's Justice.” this issue.
  14. . Wallace, Religion, pp. 159–62.