The new book by the famous scientist and journalist Matt Ridley, “The Origins of Altruism and Virtue,” contains a review and synthesis of everything that has become known about human social behavior over the past thirty years. One of the main goals of his book is “to help people look from the outside at our biological species with all its weaknesses and shortcomings.” Ridley criticizes the well-known model that argues that culture almost completely replaces biology in shaping human behavior. Like Richard Dawkins, Ridley has a knack for presenting complex scientific questions in a simple and entertaining way. What exactly determines human behavior: genes or culture? Does human consciousness really nullify the results of natural selection? Does Darwinian theory deprive us of free will? Matt Ridley tries to solve these and similar questions in his new book.