David Sloan Wilson on Richard Dawkins

This is a clip of a conference given by David Sloan Wilson called "Evolution for Everyone", where he praises and criticizes Richard Dawkins.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• richard dawkins
• david sloan wilson
• evolution
• science
• religion

[Resenbrink]

Hitchens or Harris would blow this nong out of the water.

[prosario2008]

@Resenbrink Yeah... I would really, really love to see Wilson squash both of them in a debate.

[sulljoh1]

Wilson is a thinker of a high caliber but Dennett has criticized Wilson's writings on different kinds of realism. A lot more needs to be said there. Also. Dawkins technically did not come down on the wrong side of the group selection debate. Dawkins was attacking something very clear in the selfish gene. Theories of individual interests being superseded by the interests of the group. Recent theories that are sometimes confusingly also called group selection are valid and Dawkins accepts them.

[aerycksmusic]

Check out Sloan's blog - EVOLUTION FOR EVERYONE as well as the category 'Atheism as a stealth religion' for more of the same. Thanks for the video up.

[prosario2008]

@JQisAwesome It is a term in biology, but group selection in biology does apply also to religions, political ideals, and so on, where beliefs ideologically lets a group function, establish solidarity and altruistic behavior and lets a group survive in contrast with other groups which have no such conditions and promote a more individualistic behavior.

[prosario2008]

@Nephrec Basically Dawkins says that group selection theory holds that features and behaviors in animals have evolved "for the good of the group" (this is the characterization he made on "The Selfish Gene"). Those who favor group selection today holds this view. *Multilevel* group selection holds that *given a particular enironment* a group where solidarity and altruism prevails will do better than groups where selfishness prevails. There is lots of empirical evidence about this.

[prosario2008]

@JesusRealTV Propaganda

[prosario2008]

@JQisAwesome I'm sorry JQ, but Richard Dawkins *does* get group selection wrong by limiting it to what is called *naive* group selection theory, which no scientist who holds multilevel group selection theory actually holds. Wilson and those who favor group selection do not say that features are selected "for the good of the group", an accusation which Dawkins attributes again and again against this view.