Now on ScienceBlogs: Oldest Human-Made Object in Space
I am an evolutionist who studies all aspects of humanity in addition to the biological world, as I relate in my book Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives.
In addition to my academic research, I manage a number of programs and
websites for expanding evolution beyond the biological sciences in
higher education(EvoS),
public policy formulation (The Evolution Institute),
community based research (Binghamton Neighborhood Project)
and the study of religion (Evolutionary Religious Studies).
October 31, 2009
Category: Truth and Reconciliation in Group Selection
The haystack model (see T&R VIII) includes many assumptions but one was especially biased. Recall that each haystack is colonized by a single fertilized female bearing four genes coding for docility or aggressiveness--two of her own and two from her...
Posted by David Sloan Wilson at 8:03 AM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 29, 2009
Category: Truth and Reconciliation in Group Selection
Group selection was decisively rejected on theoretical grounds, according to the patriotic history of individual selection theory. Richard Dawkins declared in 1982 that group selection had "soaked up more theoretical ingenuity than its biological interest warrants" and compared further inquiry...
Posted by David Sloan Wilson at 10:40 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Truth and Reconciliation in Group Selection
One memorable Christmas morning, as our kids were gathering around the tree, I was on my way upstairs to get a sweater when I smelled something really bad. I knew that smell. Our cat had diarrhea and had deposited a...
Posted by David Sloan Wilson at 7:52 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 28, 2009
Category: Truth and Reconciliation in Group Selection
Most people are prepared to admit that we are influenced by our cultures in ways that we don't understand. As a proverb puts it, the hardest thing for a fish to see is water. Part of the "water" of Victorian...
Posted by David Sloan Wilson at 7:45 AM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 27, 2009
Category: Truth and Reconciliation in Group Selection
One reason that I don't spend a lot of time bashing religion is because there are so many other flagrant departures from factual reality to pick on.
Posted by David Sloan Wilson at 7:25 AM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 26, 2009
Category: Truth and Reconciliation in Group Selection
By the 1960's, evolutionary theory had settled into a comfortable paradigm called the Modern Synthesis. With other major issues apparently settled (go here for an update on the Modern Synthesis), the issue of group selection began to occupy center stage....
Posted by David Sloan Wilson at 10:12 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 25, 2009
Category: Truth and Reconciliation in Group Selection
In their book Darwinism Evolving, David J. Depew and Bruce H. Weber make the interesting point that pre-Darwinian notions did not come to an abrupt halt with the advent of Darwin's theory. Instead, they often became repackaged in superficially Darwinian...
Posted by David Sloan Wilson at 8:11 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 24, 2009
Category: Truth and Reconciliation in Group Selection
Consider some standard examples of design in nature: the aerodynamic wing of the bird, the concealing coloration of the moth, the dense fur of the polar bear. Darwin's insight was to explain these adaptations as products of natural selection: individuals...
Posted by David Sloan Wilson at 1:35 PM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 23, 2009
Category: Truth and Reconciliation in Group Selection
The phrase "truth and reconciliation" has been used to resolve bitter political conflicts and achieve national unity, starting with South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995. I would like to initiate a similar process to resolve a bitter scientific conflict.
Posted by Erin Johnson at 11:09 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Thanks to the ScienceBlogs community for such a boisterous welcome. For those who object to my metaphor of science as a religion that worships truth as its god, I offer the metaphor of science as a contact sport. We try...
Posted by David Sloan Wilson at 9:57 AM • 34 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
