David Sloan Wilson
is President of ProSocial World and This View of Life Editor-in-Chief
This View of Life Editor in Chief, President of Evolution Institute
Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University
David Sloan Wilson is president of ProSocial World and SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He applies evolutionary theory to all aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life, through Prosocial World and in his own research and writing. A complete archive of his work is available at www.David SloanWilson.world. His most recent books include his first novel, Atlas Hugged: The Autobiography of John Galt III, and a memoir, A Life Informed by Evolution.
Authored by
David Sloan Wilson
January 14, 2021
Atlas Hugged and Catalyzing Positive Change in the Real World, with David Korten
David Korten is the renowned futurist, author of When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning among many other books, founder of YES! Magazine, and a prominent member of the Club of Rome.
December 15, 2020
Evolution and Contextual Behavioral Science: Introduction
This groundbreaking series of conversations seek to integrate Evolutionary Science and Contextual Behavioral Science with a larger audience.
July 13, 2020
Ecosystems are Probably Not What You Think: A Conversation with Tom Whitham
What are ecosystems? Do they achieve some kind of balance in their natural state? Do they evolve in a way that can't be explained by the evolution of their component species? I take a deep dive with Tom Whitham into territory that is controversial even among the experts.
February 27, 2020
The Cultural Evolution of Social Pathologies: Introduction to a Series of Essays by Anthony Biglan
The fact that evolutionary selection pressures so often result in social pathologies might be hard to accept, but once faced squarely it can lead to an optimistic point of view.
February 13, 2020
Evolving a Sustainable Future in the United Kingdom
ProSocial is inherently about equity and co-production starting at the scale of small groups and then applying the same principles at multiple levels.
September 25, 2019
New Foundations for Macroeconomics
Ever since Darwin drew upon Thomas Malthus and Adam Smith, economic and evolutionary theory have been entwined throughout their histories. Yet modern macroeconomic theory has yet to incorporate developments in evolutionary theory during the last few decades.
July 22, 2019
Master Class: A Conversation with Jonathan Birch About the Equivalence of Theories of Social Evolution
The controversy over group selection that emerged in the 1960’s seemed as if one theory could be rejected in favor of another, but it was really more like monolingual people declaring each other to be confusing and wrong.
May 10, 2019
Group Selection in Every Way Except Using the Words: A Critique of "The Goodness Paradox" by Richard Wrangham
Wrangham's new book on the evolution of cooperation gets many things right. But he errs in thinking that he can develop his thesis without invoking group selection.
December 10, 2018
Can Evolution Be Conscious? Introducing a Collection of Commentaries Published on This View of Life
To make the concept of conscious evolution fully respectable again, TVOL is pleased to feature this collection of commentaries by leading evolutionary scientists and philosophers.
November 28, 2018
Fighting for the Middle Ground: David Sloan Wilson Interviews Holly Dunsworth on the Ethics of Teaching Evolution
In a world that is being ripped apart by polarized views and fake news, scientific discourse might be the last bastion of constructive disagreement based on respect for objective knowledge.
October 9, 2018
Saving Social Constructivism
Social constructivism is on trial for being an academic fraud. Can it be rescued and does it have valid points to make about science after all?
June 18, 2018
You're Racist and Sexist, But It’s Not (Entirely) Your Fault
Companies are great at evaluating skills but inconsistent at evaluating temperament due to unconscious bias. These biases are, in part, a natural outcome of the human species evolving in small, homogenous groups. But new tools can help us overcome our innate biases to achieve cultural change.
May 23, 2018
Is There a Universal Morality? Introduction and Overview of Responses
TVOL is pleased to explore the question “Is there a universal morality?” with the help of philosophers and scientists at the forefront of studying morality in light of “this view of life”. Our fifteen essayists provided a surprising diversity of answers to the question.
May 17, 2018
Moral Universals, Moral Particulars and Tinbergen’s Four Questions
Tinbergen’s four questions apply to any variation-and-selection process, including but not restricted to genetic evolution. Accordingly, they can be insightful for the study of moral universals and particulars as products of human genetic and cultural evolution.
March 29, 2018
Systems Engineering as Cultural Group Selection: A Conversation with Guru Madhavan
Systems engineering can be seen as an exceptionally pure form of artificial cultural group selection, which explicitly treats a physical or a social system as the unit of selection and employs highly refined processes for evolving the system’s component parts.
January 12, 2018
Religious Epigenetics
How can conservative and progressive Christian denominations churches be so different from each other, despite sharing the same sacred text? For the same reason that skin and liver cells can be so different, despite sharing the same DNA.
December 22, 2017
Thinking Clearly About Collective Intelligence: A Conversation with Geoff Mulgan about his new book Big Mind
A conversation with Geoff Mulgan, founder of the think tank Demos and current chief executive of Nesta, the UK’s National Endowment for Science, on his new book "Big Mind: How Collective Intelligence Can Change Our World".
