Chapter 1 motivates and creates the context for the book. It offers a first entry into “generalized evolution” without offering too much detail. In later chapters this is elaborated for different applications. As I will show in various places in the book, using several summarizing schemes to visually clarify, evolution is more complex than many other treatments suggest. Therefore, it makes sense to give readers the time to slowly develop a picture of generalized evolution in their mind. To motivate the potentially wide and practical scope of evolutionary thinking, the case of evolutionary medicine is presented, along with particulars for AIDS and cancer. In addition, this section briefly argues that evolutionary thinking can contribute to a broader set of policy and problem-solving practices, as considered in detail in the final part of the book. Since evolutionary thinking in the social sciences has met with considerable resistance, both from within and from biologists, I end this first chapter by considering the main objections that have been raised and offering counter-arguments to these. I expect that this will make many readers curious about later chapters.