How is it that, in the supposedly advanced, sophisticated twenty-first century, man allows himself to be largely ruled by monstrous, self-seeking, amoral demagogues? From Trump to Putin, Xi to Kim Jong-un, Netanyahu to Khomeini, the list of all-powerful authoritarian despots dominates humanity's political landscape more comprehensively than ever it did in ancient times, from the Bronze Age, to the Greek and Roman empires, to the 'Renaissance' itself.

George Orwell published Nineteen Eighty-four in 1949, over three-quarters of a century ago, yet that frightening vision of a tyrannical state is still mirrored in many countries around the globe. The event that one dominating individual can order an entire nation to go to war against another is as possible now as ever it was in Alexander's, or Napoleon's, or Hitler's time. And of course to then threaten the survival of the entire planet in ways that never existed previously. How is this possible?

The answer is actually quite simple. Homo sapiens may be able to send people to Mars and to invent AI, but emotionally and psychologically we are still only two steps out of the jungle. Darwin's fundamental discovery that everything evolves by trial and error explains clearly the gradual development of species' abilities over aeons of time, to the point where, for the first time in history, man, the most advanced of them, theoretically has control over his own future.

However Darwinian theory also explains how survival depends on instincts which are embedded deep in creatures' DNA. The lamb who staggers to its feet within moments of birth, the fledgling who takes to the air before it knows how to walk, the insect who freezes at the shadow of a bird of prey, all owe their survival to that subconscious inborn impulse which is somehow built in to their very marrow. Likewise, man is still largely controlled by the prehistoric forces which evolved over the millennia, and which were necessary for his own protection in a world where gigantic and incomprehensible agencies operated.

A world where unscalable mountains, impenetrable forests, tempestuous seas dominated his realm, and where alien beasts and foreign armies threatened from all sides. And in which such terrors could only be explained apparently by superstitious forces and unseen deities.

Consequently man came to put his trust in the ruling god or gods who he imagined might be sympathetic to his cause, and in the leaders who offered the most potent ability to lead him to promised lands. This longing for, and dependence on, an omnipotent father figure is a fundamental ingredient in mankind's makeup. From babyhood and youth's obeisance to the family head, to later subservience to the school teacher and the parish priest, and in adulthood to optimistic trust in the head of government, however demoniac, all stem from that innate instinctive yearning for some paternal hero, or some supreme deity, who can provide certainty and security in a frightening world.

Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' rule meant that, from the forming of the very first communities, it was the strongest and fiercest leaders who could protect their inhabitants from the threat of the rival communities bordering it. It was the most ruthless of chiefs who could guarantee access to scarce food and water resources, and to the healthiest breeding females. And it was the most powerful of gods who would lead their adherents to victory in the great contest for survival.

Those dependency instincts are still there, buried deep in our psyches, and, as our technological and scientific prowess develops, they are given a potency that extends far beyond the borders of local societies, to national and international rivalry.

However, now is surely the time for us to grow up. Surely it is imperative now for us to abandon primitive beliefs in all powerful gods and infallible dictators. Simple logic dictates the absurdity of a Muslim call to 'eliminate the infidel', or the proposition that a Christian God would have waited a quarter of a million years of homo sapiens tempestuous existence before deciding to send his 'son' down to attempt some kind of miraculous reformation (which plainly didn't work).

Objective consideration surely excludes the idea that a myriad conflicting religious creeds - which have been behind the majority of mankind's military conflicts - can actually have legitimacy. Is it not time for us to take responsibility for our future on our own shoulders, rather than on some wondrous ethereal power that no one has ever seen or proven? The very word, 'faith', which all religions pronounce as the essence of their doctrine, actually translates as 'belief without proof'. It is extraordinary that otherwise intelligent and educated minds still cling to these ideologies, however comforting. But, as I say, those instincts are embedded deep within our primitive souls.

However, there are signs that such instincts are gradually dwindling within the most advanced societies. Religious fanaticism and intolerance are now largely confined to the most uncivilised and repressed of populations. Church-going is a shrinking practice across most Western countries, even if the search for more rational moral frameworks is as yet largely erratic. Nations operating under the liberal democracy template (originated in Britain and largely spread around the planet by the British Empire - remember that, all those who deride its history) are becoming more secular with every decade. For all its problems the democratic model is still the best and most humane system so far invented, and its method of ever-evolving national consensus is what progressively undermines fable and superstition.

Nevertheless, it will probably be many centuries of evolution and scientific enlightenment before all the primeval impulses are completely eradicated, and man reaches full maturity. If, that is, he survives that long.