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This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution
It is widely understood that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution completely revolutionized the study of biology. Yet, according to David Sloan Wilson, the Darwinian revolution won't be truly complete until it is applied more broadly--to everything associated with the words "human," "culture," and "policy."
In a series of engaging and insightful examples--from the breeding of hens to the timing of cataract surgeries to the organization of an automobile plant--Wilson shows how an evolutionary worldview provides a practical tool kit for understanding not only genetic evolution but also the fast-paced changes that are having an impact on our world and ourselves. What emerges is an incredibly empowering argument: If we can become wise managers of evolutionary processes, we can solve the problems of our age at all scales--from the efficacy of our groups to our well-being as individuals to our stewardship of the planet Earth.
In a series of engaging and insightful examples--from the breeding of hens to the timing of cataract surgeries to the organization of an automobile plant--Wilson shows how an evolutionary worldview provides a practical tool kit for understanding not only genetic evolution but also the fast-paced changes that are having an impact on our world and ourselves. What emerges is an incredibly empowering argument: If we can become wise managers of evolutionary processes, we can solve the problems of our age at all scales--from the efficacy of our groups to our well-being as individuals to our stewardship of the planet Earth.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published February 26, 2019
About the author
David Sloan Wilson
32 books165 followersDavid Sloan Wilson has been a professor of evolutionary biology at Binghamton University for more than twenty years. He has written three academic books on evolution, authored hundreds of papers, some with E.O. Wilson, and his first book for a general audience was Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think.
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March 6, 2019
In the final paragraph of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin wrote, “There is grandeur in this view of life...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
From this poetic ending we get the title of David Sloan Wilson’s latest book, This View of Life, which seeks to expand the evolutionary worldview beyond the biological realm to the realm of human culture and policy.
Biology is one of the few disciplines that already has its grand unifying theory: evolution by natural selection. It’s what prompted the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky to declared in 1973 that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
Evolution by natural selection beautifully explains all things biological from the fossil record to DNA sequences to taxonomical classification, and every plant and animal can be explained fully in terms if its function, evolutionary history, mechanism of behavior, and embryological development—all under one grand unifying theory.
What Wilson is proposing is that the human sciences—psychology, sociology, history, politics, education, etc.—can also be better explained by, and included within, the grand unifying theory of evolution. Wilson is essentially taking Dobzhansky one step further by stating that “nothing in human culture makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
The problem is that this has been stated before, in poor form. We are resistant to the application of evolution to the study of human behavior for two (misguided) reasons: 1) we think evolution means only genetic evolution (which means determinism), and 2) social Darwinism.
Wilson dispels the myth of social Darwinism in the first chapter. He notes, first, that Charles Darwin himself was not a social Darwinist. Social Darwinism has always been a derogatory term associated with eugenics, genocide, and the phrase “survival of the fittest,” which is a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer, not Darwin.
The irony is that, as Wilson writes, “People hardly ever call themselves social Darwinists and those who are accused almost never actually use Darwin’s theory to justify their position.” Darwin himself never adopted the social Darwinist views, recognizing the importance of sympathy and cooperation over competition in human evolution. As Darwin wrote, “selfish and contentious people will not cohere and without coherence nothing can be effected.”
As Wilson states, any tool can be used as a weapon, and evolutionary theory is no exception, but the important point is that the evolutionary worldview does not necessarily lead to the pursuit of ruthless competition. Properly understood, the evolutionary worldview places far more importance on human cooperation, and therefore the social Darwinist views are nothing more than imaginary evils that prevent us from weilding a more accurate picture of reality.
As Wilson repeatedly states, human cultural evolution, being a part of (but distinct from) genetic evolution, is not deterministic. Cultural evolution can take us in a number of different directions, and, unguided, will likely take us where we don’t want to go. Our task is guide the evolutionary process toward appropriate and worthwhile goals.
Wilson, throughout the book, provides several examples of how the evolutionary worldview helps us to more effectively solve problems and manage small groups. But this is where we need to pause to consider the contentious topic of group selection, because it’s easy to dismiss Wilson outright if you take his views on group selection to be wrong. In fact, nothing in the book will make sense except in the light of group selection (or multi-level selection, as Wilson calls it).
The controversy, I believe, is largely illusory and one of perspective. Those against the idea of group selection will note that groups cannot replicate themselves, and therefore cannot participate in the process of variation and selection that is required for evolution. Groups, like bodies, are simply “vehicles” for the genes, and genes are, technically, the only physical material that can actually replicate.
Multi-level selection, as I understand Wilson to be describing it, accepts that genes are the replicators and groups are the vehicles. But the vehicles, in the case the groups, can influence which genes are ultimately passed on, therefore having an indirect but powerful impact on gene transmission.
Think of an individual struggling to survive. If he is well-adapted to his environment, and can outcompete his competition, evade his predators, and secure a mate, then he will pass on his genetic information to future generations. Any genetic variation that makes this more likely will increase his fitness and increase the representation of those genes in the population. Group selection doesn’t factor into this scenario.
But think about this same individual as part of a group that is competing against other groups. Regardless of his fitness level within his group, if another group outcompetes his group, and his group dies off, his genes are not passed on to future generations.
Consider an alternative scenario. What if this individual is part of a group that cooperates more effectively and can fend off the competing group, so that this other group dies off instead. Now, this individual’s genes will have been passed on to to future generations, but only because his group was better at cooperating and outcompeting other groups. This is group selection, even though it is still only the genes that are being transmitted. Selection is working at two levels.
To accept Wilson’s conception of multi-level selection is only to accept that groups can indirectly impact the transmission of genes, which it seems that they clearly can, as when ant colonies that outcompete other ant colonies replicate themselves as vehicles through the genetic replication of its individual members. The genes have an impact on the vehicles and the vehicles have an impact on the genes (and not only from group selection, but also from epigenetics, or the modification of gene expression).
I suspect that a large number of people will turn away from the book on the first hint of group selection, and that is unfortunate. At the same time, Wilson certainly could have done a better job defending his particular conception of group selection. Rather, he seems to pretend it’s not controversial and just assumes that his readers will agree. This is probably a mistake.
So already there are a few hurdles you have to overcome before you can really dig into the main ideas of the book. If you think evolution means genetic evolution only, that any application of evolution to human culture is social Darwinism, or that group selection is flat out wrong in any form, then you will likely dismiss the book before it even gets started. However, if you’re able to see these misconceptions for what they are, the remainder of the book will expand your perspective on using evolutionary theory to solve real-world problems.
So what exactly can the evolutionary perspective offer, in practical terms? That’s the meat and strength of the book, once you clear away the biases mentioned above. Wilson recounts several real-world applications in business, education, and public policy that leverages the evolutionary worldview.
The best way to think of the evolutionary approach to managing teams and implementing policy is to think of the area between Laissez-faire and centralized planning. In terms of Laissez-faire, Wilson writes, “If there is anything that evolution teaches us, it is that the pursuit of lower-level self-interest does not automatically benefit the common good.” As for central planning, Wilson reminds us that “the reason centralized planning seldom works is because the world is too complex to be understood by anyone.” No matter how well intentioned the planning is, there are always unforeseen consequences.
What can work, instead, is a managed process of variation and selection. Once a worthwhile goal is established that considers the common good, a process of planned and unplanned variation and selection can be managed as the optimal way to achieve the stated goal. This scientific-oriented approach to problem solving can be applied not only in biology but also in business, government, and the management of any group.
In the chapter titled “What All Groups Need,” Wilson summarizes the research of Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel Prize in economics for her research on the tragedy of the commons. Specifically, she analyzed a worldwide database of groups that had successfully managed common-pool resources. The tragedy of the commons, if you’re not familiar, is the problem associated with a group of people sharing a resource that each individual person is tempted to overuse at the expense of the group.
It turns out that the most successful groups all abided by eight core design principles (CDPs), which can be used as a template for creating effective groups in business, government, education, and more. They include the establishment of clear goals and purpose, collective decision making, fair distribution of costs and benefits, self-monitoring, graduated punishments, local autonomy, and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances without top-down rigidity.
Far from being only theoretical, Wilson recounts how he implemented these CDPs with great success by developing an at-risk program for ninth and tenth graders at Binghamton High School. Wilson also shows how the CDPs can be implemented for the management of neighborhoods, religious groups, and socially-minded businesses.
Humans evolved within the context of small groups, and it is through the creation of effective small group dynamics that we are most effective at solving problems. Understanding how to manage groups within the framework of evolutionary theory will not only complete the darwinian revolution but will also give us our best chance to solve our most pressing social problems.
The only thing I would add is that this is not necessarily new; David Deutsch has outlined this evolutionary approach in his book The Beginning of Infinity, and Karl Popper long ago emphasized the evolutionary approach to knowledge and policy. Popper’s “conjectures and refutations” is, after all, the concept of “variation and selection” expressed in different terms. I was somewhat surprised that Wilson made no mention of these authors. Nonetheless, the presentation is unique and the practical examples drive the point home in terms of relevance to real-world problems.
In closing, if we’re looking for long-term solutions to our political problems, this is it. Leveraging the evolutionary process of variation and selection to achieve goals brings a level of sanity and rationality to the political process, which should be thought of as a cooperative problem solving activity rather than as a pre-darwinian zero-sum competition between competing factions.
From this poetic ending we get the title of David Sloan Wilson’s latest book, This View of Life, which seeks to expand the evolutionary worldview beyond the biological realm to the realm of human culture and policy.
Biology is one of the few disciplines that already has its grand unifying theory: evolution by natural selection. It’s what prompted the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky to declared in 1973 that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
Evolution by natural selection beautifully explains all things biological from the fossil record to DNA sequences to taxonomical classification, and every plant and animal can be explained fully in terms if its function, evolutionary history, mechanism of behavior, and embryological development—all under one grand unifying theory.
What Wilson is proposing is that the human sciences—psychology, sociology, history, politics, education, etc.—can also be better explained by, and included within, the grand unifying theory of evolution. Wilson is essentially taking Dobzhansky one step further by stating that “nothing in human culture makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
The problem is that this has been stated before, in poor form. We are resistant to the application of evolution to the study of human behavior for two (misguided) reasons: 1) we think evolution means only genetic evolution (which means determinism), and 2) social Darwinism.
Wilson dispels the myth of social Darwinism in the first chapter. He notes, first, that Charles Darwin himself was not a social Darwinist. Social Darwinism has always been a derogatory term associated with eugenics, genocide, and the phrase “survival of the fittest,” which is a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer, not Darwin.
The irony is that, as Wilson writes, “People hardly ever call themselves social Darwinists and those who are accused almost never actually use Darwin’s theory to justify their position.” Darwin himself never adopted the social Darwinist views, recognizing the importance of sympathy and cooperation over competition in human evolution. As Darwin wrote, “selfish and contentious people will not cohere and without coherence nothing can be effected.”
As Wilson states, any tool can be used as a weapon, and evolutionary theory is no exception, but the important point is that the evolutionary worldview does not necessarily lead to the pursuit of ruthless competition. Properly understood, the evolutionary worldview places far more importance on human cooperation, and therefore the social Darwinist views are nothing more than imaginary evils that prevent us from weilding a more accurate picture of reality.
As Wilson repeatedly states, human cultural evolution, being a part of (but distinct from) genetic evolution, is not deterministic. Cultural evolution can take us in a number of different directions, and, unguided, will likely take us where we don’t want to go. Our task is guide the evolutionary process toward appropriate and worthwhile goals.
Wilson, throughout the book, provides several examples of how the evolutionary worldview helps us to more effectively solve problems and manage small groups. But this is where we need to pause to consider the contentious topic of group selection, because it’s easy to dismiss Wilson outright if you take his views on group selection to be wrong. In fact, nothing in the book will make sense except in the light of group selection (or multi-level selection, as Wilson calls it).
The controversy, I believe, is largely illusory and one of perspective. Those against the idea of group selection will note that groups cannot replicate themselves, and therefore cannot participate in the process of variation and selection that is required for evolution. Groups, like bodies, are simply “vehicles” for the genes, and genes are, technically, the only physical material that can actually replicate.
Multi-level selection, as I understand Wilson to be describing it, accepts that genes are the replicators and groups are the vehicles. But the vehicles, in the case the groups, can influence which genes are ultimately passed on, therefore having an indirect but powerful impact on gene transmission.
Think of an individual struggling to survive. If he is well-adapted to his environment, and can outcompete his competition, evade his predators, and secure a mate, then he will pass on his genetic information to future generations. Any genetic variation that makes this more likely will increase his fitness and increase the representation of those genes in the population. Group selection doesn’t factor into this scenario.
But think about this same individual as part of a group that is competing against other groups. Regardless of his fitness level within his group, if another group outcompetes his group, and his group dies off, his genes are not passed on to future generations.
Consider an alternative scenario. What if this individual is part of a group that cooperates more effectively and can fend off the competing group, so that this other group dies off instead. Now, this individual’s genes will have been passed on to to future generations, but only because his group was better at cooperating and outcompeting other groups. This is group selection, even though it is still only the genes that are being transmitted. Selection is working at two levels.
To accept Wilson’s conception of multi-level selection is only to accept that groups can indirectly impact the transmission of genes, which it seems that they clearly can, as when ant colonies that outcompete other ant colonies replicate themselves as vehicles through the genetic replication of its individual members. The genes have an impact on the vehicles and the vehicles have an impact on the genes (and not only from group selection, but also from epigenetics, or the modification of gene expression).
I suspect that a large number of people will turn away from the book on the first hint of group selection, and that is unfortunate. At the same time, Wilson certainly could have done a better job defending his particular conception of group selection. Rather, he seems to pretend it’s not controversial and just assumes that his readers will agree. This is probably a mistake.
So already there are a few hurdles you have to overcome before you can really dig into the main ideas of the book. If you think evolution means genetic evolution only, that any application of evolution to human culture is social Darwinism, or that group selection is flat out wrong in any form, then you will likely dismiss the book before it even gets started. However, if you’re able to see these misconceptions for what they are, the remainder of the book will expand your perspective on using evolutionary theory to solve real-world problems.
So what exactly can the evolutionary perspective offer, in practical terms? That’s the meat and strength of the book, once you clear away the biases mentioned above. Wilson recounts several real-world applications in business, education, and public policy that leverages the evolutionary worldview.
The best way to think of the evolutionary approach to managing teams and implementing policy is to think of the area between Laissez-faire and centralized planning. In terms of Laissez-faire, Wilson writes, “If there is anything that evolution teaches us, it is that the pursuit of lower-level self-interest does not automatically benefit the common good.” As for central planning, Wilson reminds us that “the reason centralized planning seldom works is because the world is too complex to be understood by anyone.” No matter how well intentioned the planning is, there are always unforeseen consequences.
What can work, instead, is a managed process of variation and selection. Once a worthwhile goal is established that considers the common good, a process of planned and unplanned variation and selection can be managed as the optimal way to achieve the stated goal. This scientific-oriented approach to problem solving can be applied not only in biology but also in business, government, and the management of any group.
In the chapter titled “What All Groups Need,” Wilson summarizes the research of Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel Prize in economics for her research on the tragedy of the commons. Specifically, she analyzed a worldwide database of groups that had successfully managed common-pool resources. The tragedy of the commons, if you’re not familiar, is the problem associated with a group of people sharing a resource that each individual person is tempted to overuse at the expense of the group.
It turns out that the most successful groups all abided by eight core design principles (CDPs), which can be used as a template for creating effective groups in business, government, education, and more. They include the establishment of clear goals and purpose, collective decision making, fair distribution of costs and benefits, self-monitoring, graduated punishments, local autonomy, and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances without top-down rigidity.
Far from being only theoretical, Wilson recounts how he implemented these CDPs with great success by developing an at-risk program for ninth and tenth graders at Binghamton High School. Wilson also shows how the CDPs can be implemented for the management of neighborhoods, religious groups, and socially-minded businesses.
Humans evolved within the context of small groups, and it is through the creation of effective small group dynamics that we are most effective at solving problems. Understanding how to manage groups within the framework of evolutionary theory will not only complete the darwinian revolution but will also give us our best chance to solve our most pressing social problems.
The only thing I would add is that this is not necessarily new; David Deutsch has outlined this evolutionary approach in his book The Beginning of Infinity, and Karl Popper long ago emphasized the evolutionary approach to knowledge and policy. Popper’s “conjectures and refutations” is, after all, the concept of “variation and selection” expressed in different terms. I was somewhat surprised that Wilson made no mention of these authors. Nonetheless, the presentation is unique and the practical examples drive the point home in terms of relevance to real-world problems.
In closing, if we’re looking for long-term solutions to our political problems, this is it. Leveraging the evolutionary process of variation and selection to achieve goals brings a level of sanity and rationality to the political process, which should be thought of as a cooperative problem solving activity rather than as a pre-darwinian zero-sum competition between competing factions.
July 1, 2019
Mixed feelings about this. I guess the main point of the book is that we should use evolutionary ideas to better understand humanity and to help formulate public policy. In order to get there he has to explain evolution and especially his ideas about multilevel selection. Important stuff, but not clearly explicated, especially the multilevel stuff which I understand to be pretty controversial among geneticists. Then the way he applies this stuff to things like schools, businesses, and governments has some good ideas but it feels really thin, illustrated by a few cases and a few experiments that don’t seem conclusive. I’m really very receptive to this way of thinking about things, but I don’t feel like he did a great job making his points.
August 14, 2019
There are some interesting facts, important ideas and useful analogies in this book. Understanding how to figure out what works for social policy is very important, but the effort to make that be all about evolution struck me as Procrustean. I think the author was off by a few letters. The real point about his examples is not evolution, but rather EVIDENCE (from experimental trials, etc.). Regardless of the theory behind them, somebody bothered to test them and that's how we know they work. Everything he talks about would make much more sense if he just explained it in the context of the scientific method.
One of the first examples he gives is of Ignaz Semmelweis and hand washing to prevent childbed fever. He argues that this was somehow a proof of Germ Theory, but it occurred long before Germ Theory and did not involve the identification of any specific germs or an accurate understanding of evolutionary biology. (See: The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis) Nevertheless it worked, as did the Sanitarian movement in general even though it was based on miasma theory, which seems nutty now. Bad theories with good evidence are better than good theories with bad evidence.
One of the first examples he gives is of Ignaz Semmelweis and hand washing to prevent childbed fever. He argues that this was somehow a proof of Germ Theory, but it occurred long before Germ Theory and did not involve the identification of any specific germs or an accurate understanding of evolutionary biology. (See: The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis) Nevertheless it worked, as did the Sanitarian movement in general even though it was based on miasma theory, which seems nutty now. Bad theories with good evidence are better than good theories with bad evidence.
January 2, 2021
The idea that groups and cultures are affected by evolutionary processes is a useful one, and I appreciated some of the anecdotes the author shared to illustrate that concept, especially early in the book. However, his insistence that the evolutionary worldview is the cure-all for everything, and the implication that everything that goes wrong is because people haven't read his book, gets tiresome. He doesn't provide enough support for some of the very broad arguments, and his tone starts to feel a bit pretentious.
The biggest issue I had with the book was the way Wilson completely white-washes the eugenics movement and denies evolutionary science has ever been used in problematic ways. His argument here is very convoluted... basically, social Darwinism didn't actually happen because the term comes from opponents of eugenics and Hitler didn't actually read Darwin. ?!
Yes, it's a shame that Darwin's name has been tarnished by an idea that isn't reflected in his own thinking on evolution, but that doesn't really have anything to do with whether evolutionary science has been abused to cause serious and irreparable harm. The name of the horror is completely beside the point. The eugenics movement, which certainly used evolutionary science as justification for horrific abuses, is a fact of world history, and the vulnerability of marginalized groups to oppression grounded in scientific arguments is an important reality that we have to grapple with if we wish to use scientific knowledge responsibly. And I do agree with the author that our groups, cultures, and systems can benefit from the evolutionary worldview. We just need to work very hard to be attentive to our biases and the harms they cause; the author failed to do so.
The biggest issue I had with the book was the way Wilson completely white-washes the eugenics movement and denies evolutionary science has ever been used in problematic ways. His argument here is very convoluted... basically, social Darwinism didn't actually happen because the term comes from opponents of eugenics and Hitler didn't actually read Darwin. ?!
Yes, it's a shame that Darwin's name has been tarnished by an idea that isn't reflected in his own thinking on evolution, but that doesn't really have anything to do with whether evolutionary science has been abused to cause serious and irreparable harm. The name of the horror is completely beside the point. The eugenics movement, which certainly used evolutionary science as justification for horrific abuses, is a fact of world history, and the vulnerability of marginalized groups to oppression grounded in scientific arguments is an important reality that we have to grapple with if we wish to use scientific knowledge responsibly. And I do agree with the author that our groups, cultures, and systems can benefit from the evolutionary worldview. We just need to work very hard to be attentive to our biases and the harms they cause; the author failed to do so.
December 27, 2019
I received a copy of this in the mail from the publisher, but I did not request it. I don't know if it was an accident or if I had reviewed something else for them and they thought I would like this. The last book on a similar topic that I read was one I also gave one-star to without finishing. I am overall a completionist and try to finish most things even mildly worth reading. I decided to flip through the book and see where in my queue I wanted to put it. Imagine my dismay when I get two two pages showing tortured hens in battery cages- where about 99% of those on this planet misused for eggs and flesh spend their short, miserable lives. This guy uses an experiment where someone tries to make the chickens as "productive" as possible while keeping them in horrific conditions as some amazing feat in science and as a model for how to create a better society. I think, "surely, a man claiming he has the answers to creating a better society would disparage the practice keeping sentient individuals crammed together in a rusty cage the size of a shoebox stacked on top of one another in an ammonia and feces filled shed." But, no, he barely scratches the surface.
He not only uses the study as an example, he calls them "a beautiful example of within group and between group selection." He uses an image of a group with better breeding selection as an example of the wonderful merits of eugenics in farming. Look! These animals sitting on top of each other in these cages have slightly more feathers and pecked each other slightly less. What a lovely thing. He claims that the reason they attack each other is purely from genetic selection that increased a heritable trait of bullying. Could it possibly have anything to do with their nightmarish conditions of captivity? A non-scientist layman could easily draw such a conclusion. He calls chickens murderers and psychopaths because they attack each other as they go mad in these hellish conditions. I guarantee that if you stuff 8 people into a portajohn and leave them there their whole lives, they're going to fight and suffer immensely regardless of their genetics.
He has little to say about those who put them there aside from claiming he'd pay more for "free range" eggs but again sticks to blaming the hens for fighting in that environment rather than the people who put them in such a terrible place. He seems to know nothing about chicken behavior when they are given a healthy environment that meets their needs. Many sanctuaries have taken in fighting roosters- abused to be the most aggressive and thought to be beyond help and far more dangerous than battery hens- and not only rehabbed them but helped them to live with other fighting roosters in harmony. How? I can guarantee it has nothing to do with eugenics, battery cages, and "free range" sheds.
More perusing of the book led me to find that he also encourages nonhuman animal testing for human disease in ways that are not accurate in predicting human response even outside of the massive ethical concerns. He really seems to want to defend social darwinism, claiming that his type of social darwinism is different than the kind people use to celebrate and justify inequality. There's a lot of "this thing was really bad when (the nazis, etc, insert horrifying tragedy in history) did it, but I know a much better way to do it."
Here's an in depth review by someone with more scientific education in this field than me.
If I wanted advice about how to create a better society, this is one of the last people I would ask.
This was also posted to my blog.
Image: A photo of part of the page of the book showing a black and white image of a battery cage. Several suffering hens are shown with almost no feathers inside a cage approximately the size of a shoebox. You cannot see it in the photo, but the study describes most of the chickens in the cage being dead, presumably under foot of the live ones.
He not only uses the study as an example, he calls them "a beautiful example of within group and between group selection." He uses an image of a group with better breeding selection as an example of the wonderful merits of eugenics in farming. Look! These animals sitting on top of each other in these cages have slightly more feathers and pecked each other slightly less. What a lovely thing. He claims that the reason they attack each other is purely from genetic selection that increased a heritable trait of bullying. Could it possibly have anything to do with their nightmarish conditions of captivity? A non-scientist layman could easily draw such a conclusion. He calls chickens murderers and psychopaths because they attack each other as they go mad in these hellish conditions. I guarantee that if you stuff 8 people into a portajohn and leave them there their whole lives, they're going to fight and suffer immensely regardless of their genetics.
Image: Another photo of a page of the book showing another photo of battery hens that the author seems to think is a positive outcome. At least 8 hens are now shown crammed into a battery cage and they are only missing part of their feathers.
He has little to say about those who put them there aside from claiming he'd pay more for "free range" eggs but again sticks to blaming the hens for fighting in that environment rather than the people who put them in such a terrible place. He seems to know nothing about chicken behavior when they are given a healthy environment that meets their needs. Many sanctuaries have taken in fighting roosters- abused to be the most aggressive and thought to be beyond help and far more dangerous than battery hens- and not only rehabbed them but helped them to live with other fighting roosters in harmony. How? I can guarantee it has nothing to do with eugenics, battery cages, and "free range" sheds.
More perusing of the book led me to find that he also encourages nonhuman animal testing for human disease in ways that are not accurate in predicting human response even outside of the massive ethical concerns. He really seems to want to defend social darwinism, claiming that his type of social darwinism is different than the kind people use to celebrate and justify inequality. There's a lot of "this thing was really bad when (the nazis, etc, insert horrifying tragedy in history) did it, but I know a much better way to do it."
Here's an in depth review by someone with more scientific education in this field than me.
If I wanted advice about how to create a better society, this is one of the last people I would ask.
This was also posted to my blog.
May 16, 2019
This book is fascinating and incredibly deep. The world would be a better place if more people shared and applied this view to their contexts. I cannot recommend it enough.
January 12, 2021
When Wilson writes that the application of evolutionary logic to culture and policy means "completing the Darwinian revolution" he is not not being hubristic. He is not claiming that HIS theory is the completion. Instead, he is referring to the growing scholarship that recognizes the importance of evolutionary considerations in solving social problems, from the very small scale all the way to the planetary scale. Since his main contribution to evolutionary theory is to emphasize the role of multi-level selection, aka. group selection, in this process, it should come as no surprise that this book, too, places a heavy emphasis on cooperation within groups, and limited competition between groups, as a way to achieve sustainable large-scale political success.
Wilson draws from multiple sources for his analysis: gene-culture co-evolution (aka. "dual inheritance" theory), the sociobiological work of E.O. Wilson, the evolutionary psychological literature, the endosymbiotic theory of Lynn Margulis, the cosmic evolutionism of Teilhard de Chardin, the mutual aid theories of Prince Kropotkin, the convoluted history of "Social Darwinism", etc... He makes a big deal out of his co-author Elinor Ostrom's work in community self-governance. This is all fine and good. But the discussion is very sketchy.
Disappointingly, the book falls extremely short where it matters the most, in offering concrete policy advice or even guidelines. This is manifest in three ways:
1) First, the book draws extremely dubious conclusions from extremely thin and anecdotal evidence. It cherry-picks a handful of studies that attempt to show that one particular school of pedagogy, one particular school of business management, or one particular school of mental health, supposedly have amazing beneficial consequences for social cooperation. And it offers extremely sketchy evolutionary arguments why this must be so. For example, it discusses the Toyota method of management and claims that this is a good example of evolutionary management. Well, maybe, but this all seems very anecdotal and unconvincing to me. He even claims that autism is caused by environmental stressors, which is a very controversial position.
2) Secondly, Wilson cannot offer convincing solutions in the realm of political economy because he does not engage seriously with the literature beyond Ostrom. In the social sciences, a lot of ink has been spilled discussing problems of governance. It is not enough for him to simply import the theory of group selection from biology into the human realm as a panacea without explaining how it should be translated into sustainable practice. For example, his discussion of the call for planetary ethic and planetary governance is rather naive. He emphasizes how pursuit of self interest should be largely abandoned in favor of altruism. Little is said about the implementation problems of such schemes. Although he disavows "central planning", he does not offer concrete substance to what he calls his "intentionally managed" ecological approach.
3) Thirdly, related to the previous point, the book spends inordinate time constructing a straw man of laissez-faire economics and attacking it. As a result, Wilson fails to pay due respect to the way in which the market order, starting from Adam Smith, has been recognized as a system of coordination as well as competition; of evolution as well as stasis. Instead, he paints the "invisible hand" theory as antithetical to evolutionary thinking even though it has many elements in common with Darwinism. This explains why in his overall plan there is very little role granted to the decentralized market process as an evolutionary problem solving mechanism. He plays more emphasis on participatory democracy - which is all fine and good - but he fails to recognize that in order to get proper trial and error learning and group selection you desperately need a system of markets and private property ownership. So, while he rightfully pillories the assumptions of the Homo Economicus model as anti-darwinian, he should have been more careful in his economic analysis and policy recommendations. Recognizing that the pursuit of self-interest, and individual's deviation from group norms, are often vital for achieving socially beneficial outcomes is not a capitulation to "greed" or neoclassicism or Thatcherism; it is evolutionary theory 101!
In the end, Wilson's book is an important left-leaning, progressive variant of evolutionary theorizing in public policy. It has some real insight into the role of groups in social and cultural evolution. It offers some interesting and useful guidelines for facilitating group cooperation based on the work of Ostrom and himself. But its policy analysis is awfully sketchy and superficial. It attacks strawman versions of economic theory and political theory and it omits any deep engagement with the relevant social sciences. It paints ambitious utopian schemes of global governance, based on the conscious management of social evolution, with little regard to the practical problems that they will face. For these reasons, I do not think that the book really succeeds. It is impossible to hate any book that draws inspiration from the magnificent Teilhard de Chardin, but it is also impossible to use such a dreamy and lofty book as a practical guide for reform.
Wilson draws from multiple sources for his analysis: gene-culture co-evolution (aka. "dual inheritance" theory), the sociobiological work of E.O. Wilson, the evolutionary psychological literature, the endosymbiotic theory of Lynn Margulis, the cosmic evolutionism of Teilhard de Chardin, the mutual aid theories of Prince Kropotkin, the convoluted history of "Social Darwinism", etc... He makes a big deal out of his co-author Elinor Ostrom's work in community self-governance. This is all fine and good. But the discussion is very sketchy.
Disappointingly, the book falls extremely short where it matters the most, in offering concrete policy advice or even guidelines. This is manifest in three ways:
1) First, the book draws extremely dubious conclusions from extremely thin and anecdotal evidence. It cherry-picks a handful of studies that attempt to show that one particular school of pedagogy, one particular school of business management, or one particular school of mental health, supposedly have amazing beneficial consequences for social cooperation. And it offers extremely sketchy evolutionary arguments why this must be so. For example, it discusses the Toyota method of management and claims that this is a good example of evolutionary management. Well, maybe, but this all seems very anecdotal and unconvincing to me. He even claims that autism is caused by environmental stressors, which is a very controversial position.
2) Secondly, Wilson cannot offer convincing solutions in the realm of political economy because he does not engage seriously with the literature beyond Ostrom. In the social sciences, a lot of ink has been spilled discussing problems of governance. It is not enough for him to simply import the theory of group selection from biology into the human realm as a panacea without explaining how it should be translated into sustainable practice. For example, his discussion of the call for planetary ethic and planetary governance is rather naive. He emphasizes how pursuit of self interest should be largely abandoned in favor of altruism. Little is said about the implementation problems of such schemes. Although he disavows "central planning", he does not offer concrete substance to what he calls his "intentionally managed" ecological approach.
3) Thirdly, related to the previous point, the book spends inordinate time constructing a straw man of laissez-faire economics and attacking it. As a result, Wilson fails to pay due respect to the way in which the market order, starting from Adam Smith, has been recognized as a system of coordination as well as competition; of evolution as well as stasis. Instead, he paints the "invisible hand" theory as antithetical to evolutionary thinking even though it has many elements in common with Darwinism. This explains why in his overall plan there is very little role granted to the decentralized market process as an evolutionary problem solving mechanism. He plays more emphasis on participatory democracy - which is all fine and good - but he fails to recognize that in order to get proper trial and error learning and group selection you desperately need a system of markets and private property ownership. So, while he rightfully pillories the assumptions of the Homo Economicus model as anti-darwinian, he should have been more careful in his economic analysis and policy recommendations. Recognizing that the pursuit of self-interest, and individual's deviation from group norms, are often vital for achieving socially beneficial outcomes is not a capitulation to "greed" or neoclassicism or Thatcherism; it is evolutionary theory 101!
In the end, Wilson's book is an important left-leaning, progressive variant of evolutionary theorizing in public policy. It has some real insight into the role of groups in social and cultural evolution. It offers some interesting and useful guidelines for facilitating group cooperation based on the work of Ostrom and himself. But its policy analysis is awfully sketchy and superficial. It attacks strawman versions of economic theory and political theory and it omits any deep engagement with the relevant social sciences. It paints ambitious utopian schemes of global governance, based on the conscious management of social evolution, with little regard to the practical problems that they will face. For these reasons, I do not think that the book really succeeds. It is impossible to hate any book that draws inspiration from the magnificent Teilhard de Chardin, but it is also impossible to use such a dreamy and lofty book as a practical guide for reform.
May 22, 2023
Cultural evolution is underappreciated and understudied. Evolution is not exclusively biological. Cultural evolution occurs alongside genetic evolution, with consequences that form our world.
I have enjoyed hearing David Sloan Wilson speak on this subject and I was greatly looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, I found it disappointing. It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly why. It felt to me as if the author never settled comfortably into a style. These two sentences appear in back to back paragraphs:
"As I recounted in chapter 5, when behaviorism was purged from academic psychology by the cognitive revolution, it didn't go extinct but continued to thrive in the applied behavioral sciences."
"If we tried to boss others around or do less than our share, we quickly received social feedback to mend our ways."
For those interested in this subject (and we all should be) but who like me have trouble staying interested in this book, one option is to just read the introduction and the final chapter and skim the rest. There are some interesting discussions of important history and studies throughout the book, though, so there is benefit to making the effort to read it all.
I have enjoyed hearing David Sloan Wilson speak on this subject and I was greatly looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, I found it disappointing. It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly why. It felt to me as if the author never settled comfortably into a style. These two sentences appear in back to back paragraphs:
"As I recounted in chapter 5, when behaviorism was purged from academic psychology by the cognitive revolution, it didn't go extinct but continued to thrive in the applied behavioral sciences."
"If we tried to boss others around or do less than our share, we quickly received social feedback to mend our ways."
For those interested in this subject (and we all should be) but who like me have trouble staying interested in this book, one option is to just read the introduction and the final chapter and skim the rest. There are some interesting discussions of important history and studies throughout the book, though, so there is benefit to making the effort to read it all.
April 3, 2019
Wilson's book gives an overview of the theory of evolution and its misunderstandings by various theorists. He posits a more accurate way of incorporating evolution into a world view than the 'social darwinists' of the late 19th century. He criticizes both centralized and laissez faire economies. Most of the book is dedicated to exploring various programs, organizations and rules which have been used to balance cooperation and competition. While the stories are interesting, there is no unified theory and sometimes he slips into advocating laissez faire or centralized solutions.
September 27, 2023
In this book, I have used the phrase "evolutionary worldview" more often than "evolutionary theory." The difference is that a theory can only tell us what is, while a worldview can tell us how to act.
I love this book and I enjoyed reading it. I want to read it again to understand in depth how world around us in evolving including human behavior.
I love this book and I enjoyed reading it. I want to read it again to understand in depth how world around us in evolving including human behavior.
May 8, 2019
The content of the book is great but written in a very dry way. Because of the writing style, it was very hard to focus but when I did, it contained some gems which served like a perfect sequel to Sapiens, which I recently finished. I powered through. I prefer even non-fiction to have a good story-telling plot. This book is not in that category but I'd still give it 4 stars because of the rich content.
December 9, 2022
We generally think of evolution as a purely physical process, happening only at the level of genetics and DNA. Yet that is not the way Charles Darwin conceived it nor how evolutionary biologist Wilson understands it. In fact, genes and DNA were not yet discovered during Darwin’s time, and he saw heredity happening through many varied mechanisms—particularly in humans. From his Descent of Man, for instance:
Some adaptive attempts are successful, but in the wrong ways for long-term evolutionary success. “Evolution frequently results in behaviors that are good for me but not you, us but not them, or all of us today without regard for future generations.” Cancer, for instance. Cancer cells are highly successful at their main goal, reproducing and growing. Yet, ultimately, they kill the organism they are a part of, leading to their own demise. They are successful in a selfish, short-term way, but over the long-range, evolutionary perspective, they are unsuccessful and don't last. Ultimately, what matters, what lasts, is not selfish success but group success. It is the adaptations that benefit the group as a whole that eventually win out.
Wilson describes an experiment with egg-laying hens divided into groups. The scientists wanted to learn how to most effectively increase egg production. At first, they took the offspring of the most productive hen from each group and grouped them. Each succeeding generation produced less, and by the fifth generation the hens were killing their groupmates. That happened because the traits that made the first generation most productive in their groups were bullying and social dominance, and as those traits passed on they magnified. The scientists also tried keeping the offspring of the most productive group as a unit. By the fifth generation, they were conclusively outproducing any of the initial groups—and getting along well, because it was the cohesive, peaceful, group traits that dominated. It is the adaptations that benefit the group as a whole that eventually win out.
Wilson’s journey from A to B in the book is, of course, even more detailed and gradual. I found it almost too slow at the beginning, as he starts with historical context and background information to correct our assumptions about evolution before digging into his proper thesis. Nevertheless, I also found it thrilling. His argument is persuasive and, to me, highly appealing. Most importantly, but the time he reaches point B he has moved on from biology as we normally think of it to applications in more relevant domains. The “policy” section.
I’ll end with this longer excerpt from the book near the end, a great example of what it means to have an “evolutionary worldview” outside of the traditional bounds of biology:
There can be no doubt that a tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection. At all times throughout the world tribes have supplanted other tribes; and as morality is one important element in their success, the standard of morality and the number of well-endowed men will thus everywhere tend to rise and increase.In this book, Wilson advocates an “evolutionary worldview,” applying principles from biology to all areas of knowledge. He is intentionally wide-ranging and multidisciplinary, finding examples from not only biology, but also psychology, sociology, education, economics, business, and more—examples of evolution in action—and synthesizes them into one overarching perspective. To paraphrase, evolution is groups working together to improve and grow through trial-and-error learning. From the level of genes and cells, bacteria and simple organisms, scaling up through plants and animals to humans and cultures, the lesson of evolution is “that the primary way to survive and reproduce [is] through teamwork.”
Individual bees take part in the economy of the hive in the same way that individual neurons take place in the economy of the brain. . . .Early in the book, Wilson describes the functioning of our immune systems. Our bodies are constantly producing a wide variety of cells meant to combat foreign and harmful invaders. Because not all invaders are the same, different versions of the cells produced will be more successful than others. The body produces more of the successful ones, fewer of the ones that aren’t. Trial-and-error; try a lot of things, keep what works, learn from what doesn’t to make improvements in what is tried next. As a group working together. That is evolution constantly happening within our bodies every day, our immune systems continuously adapting and evolving to changing circumstances.
The same story can be told for the genes, cells, and organs of multicellular organisms, which are the gold standard for a well-functioning society. To call a multicellular organism a society of lower-level elements is no longer metaphorical. It is literally the case that we are groups of groups of groups and that we qualify as organisms only because of our degree of functional organization, which evolved by between-organism selection.
Some adaptive attempts are successful, but in the wrong ways for long-term evolutionary success. “Evolution frequently results in behaviors that are good for me but not you, us but not them, or all of us today without regard for future generations.” Cancer, for instance. Cancer cells are highly successful at their main goal, reproducing and growing. Yet, ultimately, they kill the organism they are a part of, leading to their own demise. They are successful in a selfish, short-term way, but over the long-range, evolutionary perspective, they are unsuccessful and don't last. Ultimately, what matters, what lasts, is not selfish success but group success. It is the adaptations that benefit the group as a whole that eventually win out.
Wilson describes an experiment with egg-laying hens divided into groups. The scientists wanted to learn how to most effectively increase egg production. At first, they took the offspring of the most productive hen from each group and grouped them. Each succeeding generation produced less, and by the fifth generation the hens were killing their groupmates. That happened because the traits that made the first generation most productive in their groups were bullying and social dominance, and as those traits passed on they magnified. The scientists also tried keeping the offspring of the most productive group as a unit. By the fifth generation, they were conclusively outproducing any of the initial groups—and getting along well, because it was the cohesive, peaceful, group traits that dominated. It is the adaptations that benefit the group as a whole that eventually win out.
Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.That lesson scales up to humans, and heredity occurs not only at the genetic level, but at the learned, cultural level as well. Cultural evolution is just as important and influential as genetic evolution. “Individuals are products of social interactions,” and . . .
Small groups are a fundamental unit of human social organization. Individuals cannot be understood except in the context of small groups, and large-scale societies need to be seen as a kind of multicellular organism comprising small groups.We need to change our perspective, the lenses through which we see and understand ourselves, to an “evolutionary worldview” that defines humans not as individuals, but, first and foremost, as small group members, shaped by evolution as social organisms who are successful for our cooperation and teamwork more than any other traits.
The challenge of this book is to show that policy is a branch of biology. . . . To view policy as a branch of biology means that our proposed actions must be deeply informed by evolution. Around the world, we should be consulting evolutionary theory at least as much as we consult our constitutions, political ideologies, sacred texts, and personal philosophies.That’s a long summary, but it’s the most concise I can come up with to properly represent Wilson’s thinking. It’s a complex argument that requires a good deal of detail to move from point A to point B, since B is such a shift in orientation from the A we’re used to, so much that it is, to borrow a word from the book’s subtitle, a bit of a revolution.
Wilson’s journey from A to B in the book is, of course, even more detailed and gradual. I found it almost too slow at the beginning, as he starts with historical context and background information to correct our assumptions about evolution before digging into his proper thesis. Nevertheless, I also found it thrilling. His argument is persuasive and, to me, highly appealing. Most importantly, but the time he reaches point B he has moved on from biology as we normally think of it to applications in more relevant domains. The “policy” section.
I’ll end with this longer excerpt from the book near the end, a great example of what it means to have an “evolutionary worldview” outside of the traditional bounds of biology:
From an evolutionary perspective, failures are the current frontier of adaptation. Every failure provides an opportunity for a variation-and-selection process to go to work to improve the efficiency of the whole operation.
In the past, Toyota assembly plants had cords called “andons” hanging down from the ceiling that operators were instructed to pull whenever an inefficiency occurred at their station. These cords, which have been replaced by more sophisticated monitoring equipment in modern Toyota plants, functioned like the pain receptors of a multicellular organism or the alarm signaling systems of social insect colonies. Just as poking a hole in a termite mound results in a swarm of activity to repair the damage, pulling the andon resulted in a swarm of activity to solve the problem. Plant managers had their offices located on the shop floor, rather than in a separate location, so that they could be directly involved in working with the lower-level employees who encountered the problem. Since the assembly line workers are closest to the problem, their knowledge is often essential for coming up with a solution, so that decision-making becomes both a bottom-up and a top-down process focused on solving problems at a very fine level of detail, rather than managers issuing directives on the basis of aggregated data such as quarterly reports.
When a tiny change is made in a complex system, the consequences can be magnified by the interactions among elements of the system. This is why the weather is so unpredictable, which gave rise to the term “butterfly effect”—a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa can result in a hurricane in Honduras. In an automobile assembly plant, a small improvement in one part of the system can easily disrupt other parts of the system. No one is smart enough to anticipate all of the indirect effects, so it is necessary to experiment. Toyota has learned from experience to implement only one change at a time and to monitor the effect on the whole system before adopting the change. Even making a few changes at the same time would result in interactions that are too difficult to track.
With a monitoring and improvement system in place, Toyota sets its production quotas so that failures will occur. . . . This decreases productivity in the short term but increases it over the long term by revealing and eliminating inefficiencies in the whole system.
May 14, 2019
I like reading nonfiction but Wilson’s writing style made This View of Life difficult. I toughed it out anyway.
“Completing the Darwinian Revolution” would take the evolution we know beyond the biological sciences, and apply evolution to the social sciences. This would allow “planetary welfare” to become “the target of selection”. To achieve this evolutionary worldview, the whole earth must become a “superorganism”.
In order to become a superorganism, we must abandon existing “methodological individualism, a commitment to the belief that all social phenomena can and should be reduced to the motives and actions of individuals”.
In economics this methodological individualism is known as “Homo economicus...self-interest, usually conceptualized as the pursuit of wealth”.
If we move from Homo economicus (individual wealth) to planetary welfare as the target of evolutionary selection, earth becomes a superorganism with a worldview.
Many, many parts of This View of Life are valuable, interesting reading but the book as whole is a tough read.
“Completing the Darwinian Revolution” would take the evolution we know beyond the biological sciences, and apply evolution to the social sciences. This would allow “planetary welfare” to become “the target of selection”. To achieve this evolutionary worldview, the whole earth must become a “superorganism”.
In order to become a superorganism, we must abandon existing “methodological individualism, a commitment to the belief that all social phenomena can and should be reduced to the motives and actions of individuals”.
In economics this methodological individualism is known as “Homo economicus...self-interest, usually conceptualized as the pursuit of wealth”.
If we move from Homo economicus (individual wealth) to planetary welfare as the target of evolutionary selection, earth becomes a superorganism with a worldview.
Many, many parts of This View of Life are valuable, interesting reading but the book as whole is a tough read.
February 8, 2020
This was a great book! One I was looking for a long time. How to include evolution principles in our social organization: group, companies, countries. I "read" this book via audiobook and I regreted it. I feel I should re-read it on paper to get a better grasp. The book is short and very well written. Accessible to anyone, but requires too much focus for the audio format.
The content has different outcomes:
- change on the "vision" I have of the world. One of the pillar of the book is that we see **through the lens** of the theory we use.
- actable policies, both for personal improvement, and for management of groups/organizations. The second one is especially impressive because draws on fact that old, well studied, and of proven efficiency, but generally unknown (at least I had never heard of it).
The content has different outcomes:
- change on the "vision" I have of the world. One of the pillar of the book is that we see **through the lens** of the theory we use.
- actable policies, both for personal improvement, and for management of groups/organizations. The second one is especially impressive because draws on fact that old, well studied, and of proven efficiency, but generally unknown (at least I had never heard of it).
March 7, 2019
أحلى كلام
May 30, 2019
Excellent
September 14, 2019
Regardless of your views on evolution, everyone should consume this book.
October 12, 2023
I give the first half of this book 5 stars. I am persuaded that evolutionary theory can explain much more than we realize in human social and cultural behavior. This book and the author are persuasive on that point. Kudos. It is already having an affect on my own projects. And even though I'm only giving the book 2 stars, I do think it is a book that should be read and discussed.
BUT, in the 2nd half of the book, the author stumbles onto the idea that humans are, or can, or should become a "super organism." No thanks. And not only no thanks, but the author has left the realm of the science-based approach he took in the first half and entered the prescriptive approach, waxing philosophical about a unified world order. He enters the realm of public policy without a solid foundation in political theory, and seemingly lacks basic understanding of human group dynamics.
Start with the Dunbar number. Humans have a biologically natural communal size. According to Dunbar (who I find persuasive) that number is 150 or less people. That humans have built societies that are larger than this doesn't mean that it is optimal. And the author would take the enormous leap that all of humanity can emerge into a single, functional super organism. Again, no thanks.
And I say "no thanks" because consciousness, individual choice, allows me to not want that form of a life. I choose a different path. The ability of 8 billion people to choose a different path, to stray from the basic programming of DNA, removes any possibility of working together in a coherent, functional super organism. For a fun metaphorical reference, revisit "The Borg" in Star Trek. ;) Or just have a look at the logo on the cover of the book: distinct individuals being subsumed into a single blob of indistinguishable individuals to become a unified arrow pointing in one direction. :/
A zoo would be derelict to round up all chimpanzees in the world and place them into a single society. The resulting community of 200,000 or so chimpanzees would be a terrible idea for a species that evolved to live in groups of 100 or fewer members. There are species that evolved into very large groups, for example Ants (20,000 to 100,000) or chinstrap penguins that can be up to 500,000 or more members in their group. But humans, even though in very recent terms, have built large cities, this does not mean it is natural to us. And to argue that humans evolved into large-scale society doesn't mean its beneficial: evolution can take a species down paths toward extinction. Not all evolutionary changes benefit a given species.
Being a super organism would deny the radical individualism that is inherent in the consciousness of each human. It would necessarily require a top-down, authoritarianism at the scale of the entire planet. Let's go straight to one of the authors favorite tools, the Core Design Principles for managing the commons. Rule #1: Define clear group boundaries. The "Entire Planet" is certainly not a clear group boundary.
A right-sized human social unit is called a Tribe. That has become a dirty word for all the wrong reasons; mostly because it is used to describe social groups that are radically outside the scale of human sociality. BUT, I might very well be inclined to agree with the author had he argued that a human tribe (150 people, approximately) could function as a super organism. There are moments in the text where the author almost gets here, frequently referencing the need for humans to participate in small groups. But he includes this almost as an attachment to his global and large-scale theories.
To follow on the authors theory of evolution in human sociality, if the group becomes the unit of selection, some groups fare better than others. This is the competition we see in nature that underlies the theory of evolution. Nowhere in the theory of evolution does the entire population of an organism or a species evolve into a different species together. But this idea that some humans may evolve differently than other humans is not an argument that many want to entertain. But to be true to evolutionary theory such as wants to do this author, then this topic must be addressed head on. And we haven't even begun to fully consider the implications of CRISPR and gene editing. Yikes! :)
All that said, I again reiterate that I give the first half of the book 5 stars. And for that it stays on my shelf.
BUT, in the 2nd half of the book, the author stumbles onto the idea that humans are, or can, or should become a "super organism." No thanks. And not only no thanks, but the author has left the realm of the science-based approach he took in the first half and entered the prescriptive approach, waxing philosophical about a unified world order. He enters the realm of public policy without a solid foundation in political theory, and seemingly lacks basic understanding of human group dynamics.
Start with the Dunbar number. Humans have a biologically natural communal size. According to Dunbar (who I find persuasive) that number is 150 or less people. That humans have built societies that are larger than this doesn't mean that it is optimal. And the author would take the enormous leap that all of humanity can emerge into a single, functional super organism. Again, no thanks.
And I say "no thanks" because consciousness, individual choice, allows me to not want that form of a life. I choose a different path. The ability of 8 billion people to choose a different path, to stray from the basic programming of DNA, removes any possibility of working together in a coherent, functional super organism. For a fun metaphorical reference, revisit "The Borg" in Star Trek. ;) Or just have a look at the logo on the cover of the book: distinct individuals being subsumed into a single blob of indistinguishable individuals to become a unified arrow pointing in one direction. :/
A zoo would be derelict to round up all chimpanzees in the world and place them into a single society. The resulting community of 200,000 or so chimpanzees would be a terrible idea for a species that evolved to live in groups of 100 or fewer members. There are species that evolved into very large groups, for example Ants (20,000 to 100,000) or chinstrap penguins that can be up to 500,000 or more members in their group. But humans, even though in very recent terms, have built large cities, this does not mean it is natural to us. And to argue that humans evolved into large-scale society doesn't mean its beneficial: evolution can take a species down paths toward extinction. Not all evolutionary changes benefit a given species.
Being a super organism would deny the radical individualism that is inherent in the consciousness of each human. It would necessarily require a top-down, authoritarianism at the scale of the entire planet. Let's go straight to one of the authors favorite tools, the Core Design Principles for managing the commons. Rule #1: Define clear group boundaries. The "Entire Planet" is certainly not a clear group boundary.
A right-sized human social unit is called a Tribe. That has become a dirty word for all the wrong reasons; mostly because it is used to describe social groups that are radically outside the scale of human sociality. BUT, I might very well be inclined to agree with the author had he argued that a human tribe (150 people, approximately) could function as a super organism. There are moments in the text where the author almost gets here, frequently referencing the need for humans to participate in small groups. But he includes this almost as an attachment to his global and large-scale theories.
To follow on the authors theory of evolution in human sociality, if the group becomes the unit of selection, some groups fare better than others. This is the competition we see in nature that underlies the theory of evolution. Nowhere in the theory of evolution does the entire population of an organism or a species evolve into a different species together. But this idea that some humans may evolve differently than other humans is not an argument that many want to entertain. But to be true to evolutionary theory such as wants to do this author, then this topic must be addressed head on. And we haven't even begun to fully consider the implications of CRISPR and gene editing. Yikes! :)
All that said, I again reiterate that I give the first half of the book 5 stars. And for that it stays on my shelf.
August 16, 2019
How can evolutionary theory guide us in designing social policies?
This is an important book by David Sloan Wilson, who is a great evolutionary biologist and, together with his namesake E.O.Wilson, an advocate of multilevel group selection, which used to be considered heresy by the selfish gene orthodoxy, but is making a strong comeback. It can be summarized as:
‘Selfishness beats altruism within groups, altruistic groups beat selfish groups’.
Which means that within groups selection favours individuals who are selfish (because nice guys finish last), but once in a while, under special circumstances, sufficient cooperation among the individuals evolves anyway, and cohesive groups are formed that outcompete groups consisting of non-cooperative, selfish individuals. This is a kind of phase transition, in which groups can turn into individuals within groups at a higher level. Once group selection kicks in, it’s much more powerful than individual selection.
In this way molecules formed genes, genes formed cells, cells formed multi-cellular organisms, organisms formed groups, and groups formed larger groups. If evolution is a complex system, group forming is an attractor with a fractal structure. At the highest level we find the very succesful social insects like ants, termites and bees, who can be considered superorganisms. But the insects in a colony are all the progeny of one individual; the queen, so the colony is really an extended phenotype of her genome, instead of being based on real cooperation. Humans are also a social species, and here we see real cooperation between unrelated individuals, based on reciprocity, ultimately creating societies. Humans too have been very succesful, and have colonized the entire planet, for better or for worse.
Much of our moral psychology evolved to prevent selfish behavior, equivalent to cancer-suppressing mechanisms in multicellular organisms.
As humans are the product of evolution, it would be wise to see what lessons we can learn from evolution theory when designing social policy. To a large extent our ways of thinking and behaving have been shaped by group selection. Our ancestors lived in small groups on the savannah for millions of years. Cooperating with like-minded others makes us happy.
Wilson says social policies should be somewhere in between centralized top-down planning (reality is too complex for that) and laissez-faire (lower level self-interest does not automatically benefit the common good). Social policy should be aimed at managed processes of variation and selection. Working towards a target using different strategies, with full opportunity for feedback to learn from errors and select the right one. It should focus on creating the right kind of conditions for smalll groups to florish. Wilson points out 8 core design principles, that follow from sociological and evolutionary research:
1. A common group identity and goal, to create social coherence.
2. A reasonable trade-off for individuals between costs and benefits.
3. Participation in decision-making.
4. Monitoring of agreed-upon behavior.
5. Graduated sanctions.
6. Fast and fair resolution of conflicts.
7. Local autonomy.
8. Polycentric governance (making the above rules scale-independent; relations between groups should be the same as relations between individuals within groups).
This is an important book by David Sloan Wilson, who is a great evolutionary biologist and, together with his namesake E.O.Wilson, an advocate of multilevel group selection, which used to be considered heresy by the selfish gene orthodoxy, but is making a strong comeback. It can be summarized as:
‘Selfishness beats altruism within groups, altruistic groups beat selfish groups’.
Which means that within groups selection favours individuals who are selfish (because nice guys finish last), but once in a while, under special circumstances, sufficient cooperation among the individuals evolves anyway, and cohesive groups are formed that outcompete groups consisting of non-cooperative, selfish individuals. This is a kind of phase transition, in which groups can turn into individuals within groups at a higher level. Once group selection kicks in, it’s much more powerful than individual selection.
In this way molecules formed genes, genes formed cells, cells formed multi-cellular organisms, organisms formed groups, and groups formed larger groups. If evolution is a complex system, group forming is an attractor with a fractal structure. At the highest level we find the very succesful social insects like ants, termites and bees, who can be considered superorganisms. But the insects in a colony are all the progeny of one individual; the queen, so the colony is really an extended phenotype of her genome, instead of being based on real cooperation. Humans are also a social species, and here we see real cooperation between unrelated individuals, based on reciprocity, ultimately creating societies. Humans too have been very succesful, and have colonized the entire planet, for better or for worse.
Much of our moral psychology evolved to prevent selfish behavior, equivalent to cancer-suppressing mechanisms in multicellular organisms.
As humans are the product of evolution, it would be wise to see what lessons we can learn from evolution theory when designing social policy. To a large extent our ways of thinking and behaving have been shaped by group selection. Our ancestors lived in small groups on the savannah for millions of years. Cooperating with like-minded others makes us happy.
Wilson says social policies should be somewhere in between centralized top-down planning (reality is too complex for that) and laissez-faire (lower level self-interest does not automatically benefit the common good). Social policy should be aimed at managed processes of variation and selection. Working towards a target using different strategies, with full opportunity for feedback to learn from errors and select the right one. It should focus on creating the right kind of conditions for smalll groups to florish. Wilson points out 8 core design principles, that follow from sociological and evolutionary research:
1. A common group identity and goal, to create social coherence.
2. A reasonable trade-off for individuals between costs and benefits.
3. Participation in decision-making.
4. Monitoring of agreed-upon behavior.
5. Graduated sanctions.
6. Fast and fair resolution of conflicts.
7. Local autonomy.
8. Polycentric governance (making the above rules scale-independent; relations between groups should be the same as relations between individuals within groups).
March 28, 2020
A useful work to illustrate our understanding of evolution can be harnessed for the greater good of society. Tinbergen's 4 questions (History, function, development and mechanism) is often referred to as an evolutionary toolkit to probe animal behaviour as individuals and in groups. Wilson points out that this evolutionary worldview has been neglected in the realms of cognitive, political and social sciences, mainly due to misapprehensions that 'Social Darwinism' means we are on the path to eugenics. Far from it, Wilson's philosophy appears to place a great emphasis on altruism by (evolutionary) nature.
Fundamental to the evolutionary framework is buying into multi-level selection theory, which I'm somewhat sympathetic to. Critically, this means acknowledging the importance of groups as a unit in society that in itself is being selected upon. One can conceive of selfish traits thriving within groups (of cells e.g. cancer, people) but this type of behaviour is detrimental to the whole and therefore bad for competition between groups. In our evolutionary history, groups or tribes have thrived based on their ability to cooperate via altruistic means - genes/traits which support such behaviours are therefore selected for and maintained in populations.
There are some other reasonable examples provided but the emphasis on caged hens and productivity seems to diverge from a typical situation in the wild.
Cool work is introduced that applies Elinor Ostrom's Economics Nobel Prize wining research on Core Design Principles (e.g. proportional equivalence between benefits and costs, inclusive decision making, local autonomy) for successful group governance of common pool resources. Some interesting statistics on business groups that put a great emphasis on employment benefits. All in all, keep your workers motivated and happy, it leads to a thriving business. Also, no central planning and keep everyone involved!
Where it does get nebulous, are the mechanisms at which certain human cultural behaviours evolve in the biological sense, areas where Tinbergen's 4 questions don't seem to provide many answers. I would therefore say this book would benefit from stronger theoretical grounding.
I did enjoy however, Wilson lambasting the Laissez-faire economic ideology which has so strongly pervaded Western culture, thanks to Hayek, Friedman and the like. Homo economicus as it was known, where the invisible hand of the market ensures everything will come out right, appears completely antithetical to multi-level selection theory. Wilson however refrains to pursue this line of thought from the angle of the business elite class as a group on any substantial analytical level. Although not a group where individuals establish significant inter-working or physical relationship (apart from the odd dinner party and child sacrifice lol, KIDDING!), the top 1% operate in a level that preserves its interests through exactly the cultural mutation of laissez-faire ideology. Probing the historical processes and contingent material causes for our current gross inequality from a TVOL perspective would certainly make for a compelling read. The marxist-darwinian overlaps can wait for another time though!
Definitely one of the better 'big ideas' books I've come across recently.
Fundamental to the evolutionary framework is buying into multi-level selection theory, which I'm somewhat sympathetic to. Critically, this means acknowledging the importance of groups as a unit in society that in itself is being selected upon. One can conceive of selfish traits thriving within groups (of cells e.g. cancer, people) but this type of behaviour is detrimental to the whole and therefore bad for competition between groups. In our evolutionary history, groups or tribes have thrived based on their ability to cooperate via altruistic means - genes/traits which support such behaviours are therefore selected for and maintained in populations.
There are some other reasonable examples provided but the emphasis on caged hens and productivity seems to diverge from a typical situation in the wild.
Cool work is introduced that applies Elinor Ostrom's Economics Nobel Prize wining research on Core Design Principles (e.g. proportional equivalence between benefits and costs, inclusive decision making, local autonomy) for successful group governance of common pool resources. Some interesting statistics on business groups that put a great emphasis on employment benefits. All in all, keep your workers motivated and happy, it leads to a thriving business. Also, no central planning and keep everyone involved!
Where it does get nebulous, are the mechanisms at which certain human cultural behaviours evolve in the biological sense, areas where Tinbergen's 4 questions don't seem to provide many answers. I would therefore say this book would benefit from stronger theoretical grounding.
I did enjoy however, Wilson lambasting the Laissez-faire economic ideology which has so strongly pervaded Western culture, thanks to Hayek, Friedman and the like. Homo economicus as it was known, where the invisible hand of the market ensures everything will come out right, appears completely antithetical to multi-level selection theory. Wilson however refrains to pursue this line of thought from the angle of the business elite class as a group on any substantial analytical level. Although not a group where individuals establish significant inter-working or physical relationship (apart from the odd dinner party and child sacrifice lol, KIDDING!), the top 1% operate in a level that preserves its interests through exactly the cultural mutation of laissez-faire ideology. Probing the historical processes and contingent material causes for our current gross inequality from a TVOL perspective would certainly make for a compelling read. The marxist-darwinian overlaps can wait for another time though!
Definitely one of the better 'big ideas' books I've come across recently.
July 29, 2019
Completing the Darwinian revolution, is based on the idea that as a framework evolution has been restricted essentially to Biology, and benefits from being applied broadly across all areas of scientific study. Mis-using the concept of ‘survival of the fittest’ alongside a belief that laissez-faire economics have essentially sent society down a mis-guided path where individual need (competition) is often placed above group need (cooperation), to the detriment of society and the world.
Wilson utilises a number of insightful examples to illustrate this, focusing on the benefits of applying Tinbergen’s 4 questions to scientific inquiry of traits; what is the function, history, physical mechanism and development? These questions help us better answer important questions e.g. about modern illnesses, and that biology needs to inform how policy develops. Evolution is both biological (slower) and cultural (faster) and the latter drives change at a greater pace.
Wilson refers to the many other peoples work, to help him cement his arguments. Examples include Lin Ostrom’s work, she identified 8 generalised core designs that when followed generate clear real-world benefits across different groups in education, business, neighbourhoods and religion. The inbuilt benefits are for all, social responsibility lies at the heart (B-corps example). Steven C Haynes is another, the proponent of ACT a therapeutic approach that supports people to enquire about how they are and how they can change/evolve, Wilson’s key thought is how small cooperative groups and not competitive individuals are the fundamental unit of social organisation, being with others/ nurture/support = benefits,
Studying people alone is a small part of the story, studying people in groups particularly how we cooperate and become us rather than them is the larger story we need to be more aware of. History helps us look at how past mistakes are being repeated, the modern change cancer of inequality, a result of misunderstanding the nature of change/evolution; directed and undirected, planned and unplanned, & the need for regulation. Examples of how change is positively managed in business are provided; innovation ecosystems together with 7 rules for success from Hwang & Horrowitz that include cooperation fairness and diversification.
Wilson concludes his book with 4 principles that positively inform group activity e.g. like intentional communities. Whilst the benefits are set out with numerous examples, the central idea that cooperative small groups are how we function best, is an uphill battle we need to take heed of. The alternative is that self-serving individuals that currently push policy and government onto those who continue to believe ‘laissez-faire’ is best, will continue to damage the world we are all part of.
Wilson utilises a number of insightful examples to illustrate this, focusing on the benefits of applying Tinbergen’s 4 questions to scientific inquiry of traits; what is the function, history, physical mechanism and development? These questions help us better answer important questions e.g. about modern illnesses, and that biology needs to inform how policy develops. Evolution is both biological (slower) and cultural (faster) and the latter drives change at a greater pace.
Wilson refers to the many other peoples work, to help him cement his arguments. Examples include Lin Ostrom’s work, she identified 8 generalised core designs that when followed generate clear real-world benefits across different groups in education, business, neighbourhoods and religion. The inbuilt benefits are for all, social responsibility lies at the heart (B-corps example). Steven C Haynes is another, the proponent of ACT a therapeutic approach that supports people to enquire about how they are and how they can change/evolve, Wilson’s key thought is how small cooperative groups and not competitive individuals are the fundamental unit of social organisation, being with others/ nurture/support = benefits,
Studying people alone is a small part of the story, studying people in groups particularly how we cooperate and become us rather than them is the larger story we need to be more aware of. History helps us look at how past mistakes are being repeated, the modern change cancer of inequality, a result of misunderstanding the nature of change/evolution; directed and undirected, planned and unplanned, & the need for regulation. Examples of how change is positively managed in business are provided; innovation ecosystems together with 7 rules for success from Hwang & Horrowitz that include cooperation fairness and diversification.
Wilson concludes his book with 4 principles that positively inform group activity e.g. like intentional communities. Whilst the benefits are set out with numerous examples, the central idea that cooperative small groups are how we function best, is an uphill battle we need to take heed of. The alternative is that self-serving individuals that currently push policy and government onto those who continue to believe ‘laissez-faire’ is best, will continue to damage the world we are all part of.
April 28, 2020
“This view of life” is about the evolutionary worldview, which is based on the observation that evolution best explains how life has evolved not only biologically (for all species), but also culturally (primarily for humans) over the past 10,000 years. Wilson makes several observations: The theory of evolution has to be applied at the appropriate level to understand how selection happens at that level, for example, a bee swarm instead of an individual bee, a small group of humans instead of individual human beings. This grouping represents the optimal cooperative cell which is the unit that competes with other cells of similar size for survival. The next observation is that evolution operates at several levels, which he calls multilevel selection, for example, human beings within a small group compete with each other (within group selection), and small groups of humans compete with other small groups of humans (between group selection). He extends the idea to the whole of humankind across planet earth where groupings become progressively larger from towns to cities to nations to multination groups, and finally everyone of earth which he calls the superorganism. He derives this idea from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who presented it first in the 1930s in his book “The Phenomenon of Man” and predicted that over time human beings will organize to cooperate at the level of the entire planet and reach a point that he termed the Omega Point. Wilson advocates in this book that the evolutionary worldview is the right method to use to consciously drive public policy forward for the welfare of the entire world. He cites a set of rules that Elinor Ostrom gathered from her studies that determine whether or not a group is going to cooperate successfully.
Wilson cites several other works that one can follow-up in reading to gain greater insight into this evolutionary worldview from various other points of views. He also cites many examples of people already putting the evolutionary worldview to good use by forming cooperative groups to achieve various goals, such as maintaining residential neighbourhoods and getting troubled schoolchildren on track with everyone else.
Wilson cites several other works that one can follow-up in reading to gain greater insight into this evolutionary worldview from various other points of views. He also cites many examples of people already putting the evolutionary worldview to good use by forming cooperative groups to achieve various goals, such as maintaining residential neighbourhoods and getting troubled schoolchildren on track with everyone else.
April 26, 2019
This view of life: completing the Darwinian revolution is an interesting book that directs an evolutionary worldview into human culture, politics, and policy. I’ve read a bit in the past about extending ideas of the evolution of genes to memes in the cultural realm, which has been tremendously useful in understanding the evolution of ideas and technology. Most of what I have previously read focuses on cultural evolution at the level of the meme and ignores contentious group selection ideas. This was the first book that I’ve read that tries to incorporate fundamental ideas about group selection into the realm of political science, and I appreciated getting that perspective.
Wilson first spends some time trying to open the reader to the idea of the application of natural selection thinking to social contexts, which has a terrible reputation (for good reason). Then he moves on to providing examples, particularly from research he is involved in, for more effectively solving social problems by taking an evolutionary perspective.
The book really ends up focusing on policy for the most part, and although I found the examples interesting, I wish that he had spent more time clearly defining the battles around group selection and how policy decisions could be interpreted differently (or similarly) depending on what view of evolution you take. He seems to take it for granted that of course the reader will agree about group selection in the first place, which is still a pretty contentious idea in the world of evolutionary biology.
In my opinion, the best ideas in the book regard biological and systemic reasons for a reasonable balance between centralized planning/control and laissez-faire policy, written at a time when it seems like more and more people are moving to the extremes of these ideologies.
Wilson first spends some time trying to open the reader to the idea of the application of natural selection thinking to social contexts, which has a terrible reputation (for good reason). Then he moves on to providing examples, particularly from research he is involved in, for more effectively solving social problems by taking an evolutionary perspective.
The book really ends up focusing on policy for the most part, and although I found the examples interesting, I wish that he had spent more time clearly defining the battles around group selection and how policy decisions could be interpreted differently (or similarly) depending on what view of evolution you take. He seems to take it for granted that of course the reader will agree about group selection in the first place, which is still a pretty contentious idea in the world of evolutionary biology.
In my opinion, the best ideas in the book regard biological and systemic reasons for a reasonable balance between centralized planning/control and laissez-faire policy, written at a time when it seems like more and more people are moving to the extremes of these ideologies.
June 2, 2019
Along with a few other reviewers, I too found it odd that the Author writes as though he is reviving a worldview not commonly considered. The ideas referenced that come with evolutionary thinking that is the theme of the book are things most Darwinians have explored privately, in discussions, or encountered in similar books such as those from Dawkins, Dennett, Zimmer, Ridley, and so on. It seems to me that most people, upon being illuminated by evolutionary theory, draw a natural conclusion to expand the concepts to culture, economics, society, life, etc. The wide amount of publications that have done this are a testament to this inevitability. So again, I'm not sure what he believes is new here, or who he thinks is reading this that would not have considered the immense ramifications of evolutionary theory.
Nevertheless, despite this mild pretension, it's definitely worth reading. What is valuable in the book is the diverse set of examples of situations where evolutionary theory was applied, wittingly or unwittingly, to solve practical problems in different domains and how effective doing so was. Fortunately, these comprise 75% of the book.
We are all aware of examples where we're fighting against biology, or against evolution, and so This View of Life provides a helpful step towards confirming the intuitive Darwinian idea that working WITH evolution to achieve our desired individual and group-level goals is indeed the direction we should be taking in our lives, culture, society, and policies.
My favorite section was the analysis of Elinor Ostrom's Nobel Prize-winning work on the Core Design Principles and how beneficial they can be for group cooperation and management. I knew nothing about that and so am excited to explore it further and recommend learning about it either in this book or elsewhere.
Nevertheless, despite this mild pretension, it's definitely worth reading. What is valuable in the book is the diverse set of examples of situations where evolutionary theory was applied, wittingly or unwittingly, to solve practical problems in different domains and how effective doing so was. Fortunately, these comprise 75% of the book.
We are all aware of examples where we're fighting against biology, or against evolution, and so This View of Life provides a helpful step towards confirming the intuitive Darwinian idea that working WITH evolution to achieve our desired individual and group-level goals is indeed the direction we should be taking in our lives, culture, society, and policies.
My favorite section was the analysis of Elinor Ostrom's Nobel Prize-winning work on the Core Design Principles and how beneficial they can be for group cooperation and management. I knew nothing about that and so am excited to explore it further and recommend learning about it either in this book or elsewhere.
April 17, 2023
This is well worth the read. Evolutionary theory I learned in college was strictly genetic evolution through natural selection. Evolution in any other context was used colloquially or metaphorically. David Sloan Wilson is one of the main players expanding the concept "to include everything associated with the words 'human' and 'culture'", and writes for a general audience in terms everyone can relate to. Biological terms he must use are defined, and the concepts, like multilevel selection", "variation" and "selection", "epigenetics", "cultural evolution of complex systems", and "conscious evolution" are repeated and emphasized throughout the book. He provides a number of examples of how these concepts fit in for small groups, business, organizations, and expands this out to cities, countries and finally the world itself. All these examples are practical and you can see how evolutionary theory undergirds best practices to promote a more prosocial world.
The summarizing quote comes at the end, "The main contribution of evolutionary theory is not to discover solutions that have never been tried before, but to provide a general explanatory framework that identifies why best practices work and how they can be spread across all domains of knowledge and policy applications."
I understand Wilson had to weed out a lot of related concepts that were less direct to his thesis, but he does provide a window to explore further. Being part of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) has made me realize how interrelated everything is. This is where behavioral science, the science of language and cognition, developmental science, cognitive science, etc - are all connected and fall under the general framework of evolutionary science.
The summarizing quote comes at the end, "The main contribution of evolutionary theory is not to discover solutions that have never been tried before, but to provide a general explanatory framework that identifies why best practices work and how they can be spread across all domains of knowledge and policy applications."
I understand Wilson had to weed out a lot of related concepts that were less direct to his thesis, but he does provide a window to explore further. Being part of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) has made me realize how interrelated everything is. This is where behavioral science, the science of language and cognition, developmental science, cognitive science, etc - are all connected and fall under the general framework of evolutionary science.
June 27, 2021
I'm an atheist (an empiricist) that's interested in exploring how people experience spirituality and how it compares to my own profound since of awe at the natural world. I'm always chasing the high that I (and folks like me) get from Carl Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot' or 'Demon Haunted World'.
Carl Sagan used Astronomy to put our place in the universe into perspective. I've been hungry for someone to give the same treatment to the field of Biology. Stuart A. Kauffman promised to do that in 'Reinventing the Sacred' but his attempt went over my head (too cerebral, not visceral enough for me).
David Sloan Wilson's work seemed like it was aimed directly at me. And I did like it. But it fell short of my Sagan-level expectations. This book is useful mostly for the other resources he points to when giving example of how this evolutionary worldview of multi-level selection (which I understand to mean cooperative group-benefiting behaviors as opposed to competitive individual-benefiting behaviors) thrives in various forms in increasing levels of organization (tribal to national to global). Among the resources he endorses are Elinor Ostrom 8 Principles of the Commons, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Also important to note that I listened to this as an audiobook and would not recommend that. This book is best with the internet handy to look up and all the concepts he refers to.
Carl Sagan used Astronomy to put our place in the universe into perspective. I've been hungry for someone to give the same treatment to the field of Biology. Stuart A. Kauffman promised to do that in 'Reinventing the Sacred' but his attempt went over my head (too cerebral, not visceral enough for me).
David Sloan Wilson's work seemed like it was aimed directly at me. And I did like it. But it fell short of my Sagan-level expectations. This book is useful mostly for the other resources he points to when giving example of how this evolutionary worldview of multi-level selection (which I understand to mean cooperative group-benefiting behaviors as opposed to competitive individual-benefiting behaviors) thrives in various forms in increasing levels of organization (tribal to national to global). Among the resources he endorses are Elinor Ostrom 8 Principles of the Commons, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Also important to note that I listened to this as an audiobook and would not recommend that. This book is best with the internet handy to look up and all the concepts he refers to.
January 19, 2020
This book essentially argues that the theory of evolution should be more enthusiastically applied in the social sciences.
A couple of specific things:
(1) Tinbergen's 4 questions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinberge...
He suggests that asking these 4 questions is useful not just for understanding things in biology, but understanding things in general. For example if you want to understand the Catholic Church, you can ask these questions:
(i) What is the FUNCTION of the Catholic Church in society? (To make people comfortable with the idea of dying? To promote good behavior?)
(ii) How did the Catholic Church EVOLVE from PREVIOUS religions/denominations? (Evolved from Judaism)
(iii) What is the CURRENT MECHANISM of the Catholic Church? i.e. How exactly does it fulfill it's function? (Weekly mass, papal announcement, etc.)
(iv) What is the HISTORY of the Catholic Church? (Council of Nicaea, Protestant Reformation, Vatican II, etc.)
(2) Group Selection
He is a major proponent of the idea that natural selection does not work at just the individual level, but is equally or perhaps even more important at the group level.
As far as his overall argument, it sounds plausible and it's something I will try to keep in mind, but I had the feeling that he is overstating things somewhat.
But I would love to be wrong.
A couple of specific things:
(1) Tinbergen's 4 questions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinberge...
He suggests that asking these 4 questions is useful not just for understanding things in biology, but understanding things in general. For example if you want to understand the Catholic Church, you can ask these questions:
(i) What is the FUNCTION of the Catholic Church in society? (To make people comfortable with the idea of dying? To promote good behavior?)
(ii) How did the Catholic Church EVOLVE from PREVIOUS religions/denominations? (Evolved from Judaism)
(iii) What is the CURRENT MECHANISM of the Catholic Church? i.e. How exactly does it fulfill it's function? (Weekly mass, papal announcement, etc.)
(iv) What is the HISTORY of the Catholic Church? (Council of Nicaea, Protestant Reformation, Vatican II, etc.)
(2) Group Selection
He is a major proponent of the idea that natural selection does not work at just the individual level, but is equally or perhaps even more important at the group level.
As far as his overall argument, it sounds plausible and it's something I will try to keep in mind, but I had the feeling that he is overstating things somewhat.
But I would love to be wrong.
September 11, 2021
The author attempts to expand the variation and natural selection process of evolution to cover different human cultures and social orders. This is something that I want to personally understand as I see the need to make long term effective changes in the way we share our resources. Unfortunately I believe Mr Wilson is only partially successful in getting us there.
Wilson is somewhat effective when he points out how critical it is to look at the correct theory while trying to come up with good explanations. I also liked the use of Tinbergen’s four questions:
1) What is the function of a given trait? (Why this trait instead of others)
2)what is the history of the trait as it evolved? (What worked what didn’t?)
3)what is the physical manifestation of the trait?
4) How does the manifestation mature during the lifetime of the organism?
I am not sure I agree with the author’s premise that evolution creates traits that take us out to the extreme of human nature. And that social groups act as a regulator in a thermostat to bring this trait under control until it has reached a normative condition. This is all very Aristotelean but as I look at history I cannot fail to see where it breaks down
Wilson is somewhat effective when he points out how critical it is to look at the correct theory while trying to come up with good explanations. I also liked the use of Tinbergen’s four questions:
1) What is the function of a given trait? (Why this trait instead of others)
2)what is the history of the trait as it evolved? (What worked what didn’t?)
3)what is the physical manifestation of the trait?
4) How does the manifestation mature during the lifetime of the organism?
I am not sure I agree with the author’s premise that evolution creates traits that take us out to the extreme of human nature. And that social groups act as a regulator in a thermostat to bring this trait under control until it has reached a normative condition. This is all very Aristotelean but as I look at history I cannot fail to see where it breaks down
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 23, 2023
Mixed feelings. What sticks with me is the chicken experiments and the selective breeding that inadvertently preferred bullies who then tore each other apart and the follow up experiments, preferring more diverse behaviors, that resulted in a more successful chicken community. Success is defined as continuing to be highly productive as measured by producing more eggs without trying to kill each other.
You kind of need to stop and let that message sink in, to set the context for what’s put forward after, in terms of what’s suggested about human society. That we are a bully society because we have given preference to bullying behavior and that policy can help change human evolution, or the human experiment, if you will, into something better.
The question remains. Who will this managed society be better for? Who controls the design of this future society? Because, in the chicken experiments, it was the same guys, and it was designed evolution, aka eugenics.
The latter half of the book has a pretentious tone that sours the messaging, or makes the motive clearer, depending on how you want to look at it.
You kind of need to stop and let that message sink in, to set the context for what’s put forward after, in terms of what’s suggested about human society. That we are a bully society because we have given preference to bullying behavior and that policy can help change human evolution, or the human experiment, if you will, into something better.
The question remains. Who will this managed society be better for? Who controls the design of this future society? Because, in the chicken experiments, it was the same guys, and it was designed evolution, aka eugenics.
The latter half of the book has a pretentious tone that sours the messaging, or makes the motive clearer, depending on how you want to look at it.
July 26, 2019
The main paradigm is cause and result, which is what the evolution theory is about, relating to a specific issue. Completing the evolution theory actually means that it is true also regarding our minds, and not only the bodies. Thus, the main point here is that we are controlled by circumstances, both internal and external. I then saw also Arts & Ideas, which I liked more, and the same main idea – we are completely controlled, but again missing the main point – how exactly? I wish to offer you a solution to this puzzle, which provides a framework in which the various details can come together well, presented in The Path to the Boat – Really So, although I am not so objective about it. You can read the synopsis on Amazon to get the idea.
I agree with the views stated here that this kind of understanding is very important for this world’s sanity and welfare, and the misuse of some terms is only part of a general confusion we live in, not a reason not to use them. Need only to remember that we are not objective and that every term can be understood in many ways.
I agree with the views stated here that this kind of understanding is very important for this world’s sanity and welfare, and the misuse of some terms is only part of a general confusion we live in, not a reason not to use them. Need only to remember that we are not objective and that every term can be understood in many ways.
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