Perception is the overriding determinant of human behavior. As a learning machine, the human animal will exhibit behavior that reflects not only what it has learned, but failed to learn.
Human behavior reflects delusion and ignorance as well as one's factual knowledge.
The delusion and ignorance of the individual is largely a function of socialization, reflecting a society's beliefs and norms. Throughout human history, man has made continuing progress in gaining real knowledge about the Earth environment and the nature of existence, the laws and functions of nature. However, during this same period, little progress has been made in terms of human social systems. Human societies are fundamentally the same as they have always been, based on the same premises as formulated by the earliest social groups, those of our stone age ancestors. All present social control institutions are based on a belief in the supernatural, accepting neither the real nature of existence nor that of the human animal.