Notes about the author [page iii]:
 
Lynn Margulis, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1983. She has been described by E. 0. Wilson as 'one of the most successful synthetic thinkers in modern biology'. She is best known for her pathbreaking work on the bacterial origins of cell organelles and for her collaboration with James Lovelock on Gaia theory. Her previous books include Diversity of Life: The illustrated Guide to the Five Kingdoms (with K. V. Schwartz and M. Dolan); Symbiosis in Cell Evolution; Five Kingdoms (with K. V. Schwartz); and (with Dorion Sagan) The Origins of Sex, The Garden Gf Microbial Delights, What Is Life?, What Is Sex? and Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis and Evolution. She is also the co-editor (with H. I. McKhan and L. Olendzenski) of the Illustrated Glossary of Protoctista.

FRONT FLAP: What drives a happily married man to fantasize about pretty, slim young women seen on a tube train? Why does a seriously injured, semi-conscious and dehydrated mountaineer battle against impossible weather conditions, refusing the comforts of sleep, to spend three days crawling down to the safety of base camp? How is it that so many thousands of people spend their week entirely focused on whether their team will win their next crucial march? What stimulates that urge to press the pedal as hard as possible at traffic lights to make the fastest getaway? And how is it that so many people still hold religious views when the notion of an all-powerful being is irrational? All of these impulses are driven by our human instincts - sexual drive, survival, competition, aggression and our search for knowledge.
 
Few people have a problem with the idea that humans are descended from apes. But while people believe that our general shape and structure are derived from other creatures, few consider, let alone accept, the psychological implications. Man not only looks, moves and breathes like an ape, he also thinks like one. It is back in our primeval past that we find the first clues to the understanding of our human instincts.
 
But how well do instincts equip us for the twenty-first century? Do instincts help or hinder us as we deal with large anonymous cities, low-level stress, the battle of the sexes and the fracturing of communal life? In this erudite and fascinating book, which accompanies a major BBC1 television series, Robert Winston takes us on a journey deep into the human mind in search of the answers to these questions and many more. Along the way he takes a very personal look at the relationship between science and religion, one explores those instincts that make us peculiarly human.
 
REAR FLAP: Robert Winston is one of the country's best-known scientists. As Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College, University of London, and Director of NHS Research and Development and Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at Hammersmith Hospital, he has made advances in fertility medicine and been a leading voice in the debate on genetic engineering. His television series includinq Your Life in Their Hands, Making Babies, The Human Body, and Superhuman, have made him a household name across Britain. He became a life peer in 1995.