I've listened to this discussion probably 5 time or more. It never gets boring. Wilson's critique of the reductionism at the heart of orthodox Darwinism is dead on. So is his critique of the neoliberal and libertarian ideologies that spring out of this obtuse view of biology. It's refreshing to hear this cogent description of the forces of competition and cooperation where everything is not reduced to a simplistic view of human nature (and evolution).
This is an excellent video which deserves to go viral. You speak of a "mafioso" situation. I think we already have one with the "nation state", only it's not generally recognised as such, because we are all born into it, it has tradition & everyone who is anyone in society, with any wealth &/or social status, including academics who sing its praises, is well served by it. I have gained this insight from taking an evolutionary perspective of society myself, after overcoming all the taboos against doing so. What it has taught me is this: State and society conflate and confound VERY different aspects of the original tribal environment in which human nature evolved, long before the first states and civilisations emerged from it, with the modern "nation state" now deceitfully posing as our tribe or nation (intra- and inter-tribal environment) itself, while at the same time facilitating society’s SELF-exploitation (as an extra-tribal environment, on a par with the natural environment) to the personal advantage of its ruling elites and favoured (especially wealthy and academic/formerly priestly) clients, at the expense of society at large. In so doing, it perverts evolved human nature, which, as you say, evolved in a very different, natural, environment. What we have now is an artificial environment, created by & for society's elites, with little or no concern for society at large or its long-term survival. This has profound implications for understanding society & the state, which social & political sciences academics fail to recognise, because of their failure to take an evolutionary perspective. And why should they, when they are so well served by the state status quo pretty much as they are? Are you familiar with the film, The Matrix? With a little adaptation, it is a good and revealing analogy for the Matrix of state & capital: twitter.com/rogerahicks/status/1109784291960082432
I'd agree with you on the generalities you describe, but looking at your twitter thread I'd disagree with your stance on the Church (and its historical role) and some other things. These two guys, though, don't really get it. David is very bright and has a pretty wide scope, especially for a contemporary academic, but ultimately very limited by his own modern, enlightenment, biases. He doesn't really take his evolutionary approach to its logical conclusion.
D.S.Wilson makes an excellent point--evolution must always be viewed on many levels of order--simultaneously. This is the antidote to the blinkered ideology of materialistic reductionism that has put us all in a precarious environmental position. It also suggests that the social and ecological orders--ecologies that contain humankind--will provide the answer to the impending ecological collapse if we can wake up in time.
How many Christians think of their religion literally vs the mythological "Peterson way" anyway ? Is there data on that, or do we tend to assume ? Can we trust religious people to tell the truth when asked ? AKA How do we gather reliable data on that ? Are we even making the right distinction(s) ?
So how well is China treating the intellectual property, or how well does it honor ownership (of say shares), trade balance is also kinda important... hmhmhh..
David Sloan Wilson has just said not to focus too heavily on attacking other people’s’ meaning systems. Then a few minutes Shermer said “I can’t figure out how to get these people to stop believing in a literal Jesus.” Dude. Wilson just said not to try it that way.
I agree in theory. Then I walk outside and there are religious fundies telling me to turn or burn and that society is corrupt and Jesus is coming back so we don't need to worry about saving the environment. Evolution is a satanic lie and vaccines are an invention of Big Pharma to dull our sense as the illuminati seeks to take over our minds.
Sloan is absolutely wrong. The vast majority of Christians do believe that the resurrection was real and that they will really have eternal life through their belief. Not metaphorical. The progressive Christians who are fine with Jesus as metaphor are a tiny minority.
The effort to make humanism into a new "religion," a belief system that motivates and provides meaning for people based on reason rather than myth will always a struggle, because reason satisfies intellectual thinking while religion satisfies emotional thinking, rooted in ego. Different people give priorty to one type of thinking or the other, thus one meaning system (no matter how rational or true), won't unite them or satisfy all. There is a cultural evolutionary step that could do that. This is the inclusion of meditation and mindfulness into human education. This practice starts to deminish the impact of ego. As the impact of ego diminishes, so do those emotional needs satisfied by religion.
1:26:47 So what Dr.Wilson is saying is that individuals who are more prossocial happen to be more successfull at reproducing even though selfish ones mate more often, because their prossocial behaviour grants better conditions for females to survive rather than psychopathic males who try to mate every single time? Independently if the females are in reproductive stages or not? I find it funny that the arguments the groupselection camp uses can easily be explained by single level selection proponents, it's just a matter of perspective. I don't think kin selection is definetely correct, but everytime I hear multilevel selection explained i think, no this is probably wrong... I'd like to see how multilevel selection explains the evolution of hybridized species of wheat for example, because until now, they can't. They just happen to focus in very specific cases, that happen to be explained by other models too.
Sloan is also wrong when he says the leaders of the religions know that their belief system is not true because they have to tinker with it. They conceptualize those changes as the gradual revelation of truth--not as a sign that the game they are playing is fictional. Sloan is one slippery fellow.
25:10 Now here's where the problem begins... Morality isn't about the good of the comunity... It's about creating the best conditions in a given group for the majority of individuals in that group. If it increases survivability abd reproductabillity of those individuals (which obviously were the better endowed to survive in a group context), then we will see also a population increase. 35:00 exactly! 1:14:36 No, no, no... Both prosociality and non social behaviours can be adaptive, depending on the ecological context (that's why we get social and solitary bee species, if only one of the strategies was efective we wouln'd have the other) but when we have individuals cooperating And others selfishly piggypacking in the group, the selfish ones just benefit if the others don't develop counteracting strategies, so in the longrun, prossocial individuals are, in average, more successfull. And that's what we see in most social animal populations a normal curve of prossocial individuals and a few associal or selfish ones. All in all, great interview.
David Sloan Wilson is ignorant on what Christians actually believe. Of course they think Jesus actually existed, died, and rose again and will return to take them home and eternally punish the non-believers. Has he even talked to a Christian?
Maybe Wilson should have delved into 'costly signalling theory' to better explain why religion (and anything structurally similar) works. Shermer doesn't seem to get it.
@exfinium You're agreeing with me. Like I said, you can say something about the transcendent and that is "I don't know".....maybe I'm missing your point, if I am, please elaborate further and I'll try to grasp it.
@exfinium Yes, I get what you mean...but unfortunately I have to communicate with words even though if it falls a bit short. It's the only tool at my disposal
![เปิด อาณาจักร หมื่นล้าน "สาระตั้ม" l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3XE0nPF4YkQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I've listened to this discussion probably 5 time or more. It never gets boring. Wilson's critique of the reductionism at the heart of orthodox Darwinism is dead on. So is his critique of the neoliberal and libertarian ideologies that spring out of this obtuse view of biology. It's refreshing to hear this cogent description of the forces of competition and cooperation where everything is not reduced to a simplistic view of human nature (and evolution).
1:24:00 The point about psychopaths.
David Sloan Wilson and E.O. Wilson already explained this decades ago...
Hey........ Hoo do you think you are???
This is an excellent video which deserves to go viral. You speak of a "mafioso" situation. I think we already have one with the "nation state", only it's not generally recognised as such, because we are all born into it, it has tradition & everyone who is anyone in society, with any wealth &/or social status, including academics who sing its praises, is well served by it.
I have gained this insight from taking an evolutionary perspective of society myself, after overcoming all the taboos against doing so. What it has taught me is this: State and society conflate and confound VERY different aspects of the original tribal environment in which human nature evolved, long before the first states and civilisations emerged from it, with the modern "nation state" now deceitfully posing as our tribe or nation (intra- and inter-tribal environment) itself, while at the same time facilitating society’s SELF-exploitation (as an extra-tribal environment, on a par with the natural environment) to the personal advantage of its ruling elites and favoured (especially wealthy and academic/formerly priestly) clients, at the expense of society at large. In so doing, it perverts evolved human nature, which, as you say, evolved in a very different, natural, environment. What we have now is an artificial environment, created by & for society's elites, with little or no concern for society at large or its long-term survival.
This has profound implications for understanding society & the state, which social & political sciences academics fail to recognise, because of their failure to take an evolutionary perspective. And why should they, when they are so well served by the state status quo pretty much as they are?
Are you familiar with the film, The Matrix? With a little adaptation, it is a good and revealing analogy for the Matrix of state & capital: twitter.com/rogerahicks/status/1109784291960082432
We even have a known gangster in the White House.
I'd agree with you on the generalities you describe, but looking at your twitter thread I'd disagree with your stance on the Church (and its historical role) and some other things. These two guys, though, don't really get it. David is very bright and has a pretty wide scope, especially for a contemporary academic, but ultimately very limited by his own modern, enlightenment, biases. He doesn't really take his evolutionary approach to its logical conclusion.
D.S.Wilson makes an excellent point--evolution must always be viewed on many levels of order--simultaneously. This is the antidote to the blinkered ideology of materialistic reductionism that has put us all in a precarious environmental position. It also suggests that the social and ecological orders--ecologies that contain humankind--will provide the answer to the impending ecological collapse if we can wake up in time.
How many Christians think of their religion literally vs the mythological "Peterson way" anyway ? Is there data on that, or do we tend to assume ? Can we trust religious people to tell the truth when asked ? AKA How do we gather reliable data on that ? Are we even making the right distinction(s) ?
So how well is China treating the intellectual property, or how well does it honor ownership (of say shares), trade balance is also kinda important... hmhmhh..
David Sloan Wilson has just said not to focus too heavily on attacking other people’s’ meaning systems. Then a few minutes Shermer said “I can’t figure out how to get these people to stop believing in a literal Jesus.”
Dude. Wilson just said not to try it that way.
I agree in theory. Then I walk outside and there are religious fundies telling me to turn or burn and that society is corrupt and Jesus is coming back so we don't need to worry about saving the environment. Evolution is a satanic lie and vaccines are an invention of Big Pharma to dull our sense as the illuminati seeks to take over our minds.
The orthodox spent centuries attempting to squelch the heretical Jesus by burning people at the stake and banning books.
Islam is/could be the best example of his theory in action. Muslims seem to have figured out his system almost 1400 years ago.
The internet and the MeToo movement has told us all plenty about you, Michael Schermer.
Sloan is absolutely wrong. The vast majority of Christians do believe that the resurrection was real and that they will really have eternal life through their belief. Not metaphorical. The progressive Christians who are fine with Jesus as metaphor are a tiny minority.
Ok, so he’s wrong on that matter. The rest is solid.
The effort to make humanism into a new "religion," a belief system that motivates and provides meaning for people based on reason rather than myth will always a struggle, because reason satisfies intellectual thinking while religion satisfies emotional thinking, rooted in ego. Different people give priorty to one type of thinking or the other, thus one meaning system (no matter how rational or true), won't unite them or satisfy all. There is a cultural evolutionary step that could do that. This is the inclusion of meditation and mindfulness into human education. This practice starts to deminish the impact of ego. As the impact of ego diminishes, so do those emotional needs satisfied by religion.
1:26:47 So what Dr.Wilson is saying is that individuals who are more prossocial happen to be more successfull at reproducing even though selfish ones mate more often, because their prossocial behaviour grants better conditions for females to survive rather than psychopathic males who try to mate every single time? Independently if the females are in reproductive stages or not? I find it funny that the arguments the groupselection camp uses can easily be explained by single level selection proponents, it's just a matter of perspective. I don't think kin selection is definetely correct, but everytime I hear multilevel selection explained i think, no this is probably wrong... I'd like to see how multilevel selection explains the evolution of hybridized species of wheat for example, because until now, they can't. They just happen to focus in very specific cases, that happen to be explained by other models too.
Sloan is also wrong when he says the leaders of the religions know that their belief system is not true because they have to tinker with it. They conceptualize those changes as the gradual revelation of truth--not as a sign that the game they are playing is fictional.
Sloan is one slippery fellow.
Many do though, and he’s not wrong in pointing out these justifications, etc.
25:10 Now here's where the problem begins... Morality isn't about the good of the comunity... It's about creating the best conditions in a given group for the majority of individuals in that group. If it increases survivability abd reproductabillity of those individuals (which obviously were the better endowed to survive in a group context), then we will see also a population increase. 35:00 exactly! 1:14:36 No, no, no... Both prosociality and non social behaviours can be adaptive, depending on the ecological context (that's why we get social and solitary bee species, if only one of the strategies was efective we wouln'd have the other) but when we have individuals cooperating And others selfishly piggypacking in the group, the selfish ones just benefit if the others don't develop counteracting strategies, so in the longrun, prossocial individuals are, in average, more successfull. And that's what we see in most social animal populations a normal curve of prossocial individuals and a few associal or selfish ones. All in all, great interview.
David Sloan Wilson is ignorant on what Christians actually believe. Of course they think Jesus actually existed, died, and rose again and will return to take them home and eternally punish the non-believers. Has he even talked to a Christian?
Halfway in, bored shitless. Lightweight, one idea.
One idea is the point. It’s one idea that can integrate a wide range of areas.
Jesus is the Lord.
The lord of what? Theft, murder and destruction? That's what his most fanatical worshipers do best.
Maybe Wilson should have delved into 'costly signalling theory' to better explain why religion (and anything structurally similar) works. Shermer doesn't seem to get it.
The intellect cannot grasp the transcedent
@exfinium Some like Ramana Maharshi's didn't want to talk...the only intelligent thing that can be spoken about the transcendent is "I don't know"
@exfinium You're agreeing with me. Like I said, you can say something about the transcendent and that is "I don't know".....maybe I'm missing your point, if I am, please elaborate further and I'll try to grasp it.
@exfinium Yes, I get what you mean...but unfortunately I have to communicate with words even though if it falls a bit short. It's the only tool at my disposal