David Sloan Wilson (born 1949) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life for ...

and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He is a son of author Sloan Wilson, and co-founder of the

Evolution Institute The Evolution Institute (EI) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to apply science-based solutions and use evidence-based best practices to solve today’s most pressing social issues to improve quality of life. It was founded by David S ...

, and co-founder of the spinoff nonprofi
Prosocial World

Academic career

Wilson graduated with a B.A. with high honors in 1971 from the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants Undergraduate education, undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Doctorate, do ...

. He completed his Ph.D. in 1975 at Michigan State University. Wilson then worked as a Research Fellow in the Biological Laboratories at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

from 1974-1975. He held a dual position as Research Associate in Zoology at the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

and the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

from 1975 to 1976. After this he was a Senior Research Officer at the South African National Research Institute for the Mathematical Sciences from 1976 to 1977. Wilson moved back to the United States and held an Assistant Professorship in the Division of Environmental Studies at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

, from 1977 to 1980. He served as an Assistant and then Associate Professor at the

Kellogg Biological Station Kellogg Biological Station (KBS), Michigan State University's largest off-campus education complex, is located in Ross Township south of Hickory Corners, Michigan (about from the main campus). Many of the facilities there were originally buil ...

and Department of Zoology of Michigan State University from 1980 to 1988. Wilson was promoted to full Professor of Biological Sciences at the State University of New York, Binghamton, in 1988. He was given a joint appointment as Professor of Anthropology in 2001 and retired in 2019. Wilson started the Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) program at Binghamton University to unify diverse disciplines under the theory of evolution. Students in the program take evolution-themed courses in a variety of disciplines including biology, anthropology, psychology, bioengineering, philosophy,

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

and the

psychology of religion Psychology of religion consists of the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to the diverse contents of religious traditions as well as to both religious and irreligious individuals. The various methods and frameworks ...

. There is also a required "Current Topics in Evolutionary Studies" weekly seminar and discussion. Several other universities, including SUNY New Paltz have started a similar program.

Research

Wilson is a prominent proponent of the concept of

group selection Group selection is a proposed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group, instead of at the level of the individual or gene. Early authors such as V. C. Wynne-Edwards and Konrad Lorenz argued that the behavi ...

(also known as multi-level selection) in evolution. He and

Elliott Sober Elliott R. Sober (born 6 June 1948) is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general phil ...

proposed a framework called

multilevel selection theory Group selection is a proposed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group, instead of at the level of the individual or gene. Early authors such as V. C. Wynne-Edwards and Konrad Lorenz argued that the behav ...

, which challenges the more orthodox approach of gene-level selection and individual selection, in their book ''Unto Others''. This framework argues that natural selection operates on a nested hierarchy of units, such as between genes within individuals, between individuals within groups, between groups within a multi-group population, and even between ecosystems (such as microbiomes) in multi-ecosystem populations. Each level of selection results in adaptations at that level and tends to be undermined by selection at lower levels. Hence the notion of multilevel selection. Wilson has also coined the concept of a trait-group, a group of organisms linked not permanently as a group but having a shared fate due to interactions that they have. Wilson has described himself as an "enthusiastic proponent" of the

extended evolutionary synthesis The extended evolutionary synthesis consists of a set of theoretical concepts argued to be more comprehensive than the earlier modern synthesis of evolutionary biology that took place between 1918 and 1942. The extended evolutionary synthesis wa ...

Publications

* Wilson, D. S. (1980). ''The Natural Selection of Populations and Communities''. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings. *Sober, E., & Wilson, D. S. (1998). ''Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. * Wilson, D. S. (2002). ''

Darwin's Cathedral ''Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society'' () is a 2002 book by David Sloan Wilson which proposes that religion is a multi-level adaptation—i.e., a product of cultural evolution developed through multi-level selection ...

: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. *Gottschall, J. & Wilson, D.S., Eds. (2005). ''The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative''. Northwestern University Press * Wilson, D.S. (2007) ''Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives''. Delacorte Press. * Wilson, D.S. (2011) ''The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block At A Time''. Little, Brown. * Oakley, B., Knafo, A., Madhavan, G., and Wilson, D.S., Eds. (2011). ''Pathological Altruism''. Oxford University Press. * Wilson, D.S. (2015) ''Does Altruism Exist? Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others''. Yale University and Templeton Press. * Wilson, D. S., & Kirman, A. (2016). ''Complexity and Evolution: Toward a New Synthesis for Economics''. (David Sloan Wilson & A. Kirman, Eds.). Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press * Wilson, D. S., & Hayes, S. C. (2018). ''Evolution and Contextual Behavioral Science: An Integrated Framework for Understanding, Predicting, and Influencing Behavior''. Menlo Park, CA: New Harbinger Press. * Wilson, D.S. (2019) ''This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution''. Pantheon Press. *Atkins, P. W. D., Wilson, D. S., & Hayes, S. C. (2019). ''Prosocial: Using evolutionary science to build productive, equitable, and collaborative groups''. New Harbinger * Wilson, D. S., Geher, G., Gallup, A., & Head, H. (Eds.). (2019). ''Darwin’s Roadmap to the Curriculum: Evolutionary Studies in Higher Education''. Oxford University Press, USA: Oxford University Press USA. * Wilson, D.S. (2020
Atlas Hugged: The Autobiography of John Galt III
(novel). Redwood Press. * Wilson, D.S. (2022
A Life Informed by Evolution
(memoir). Wilson's book ''

'' proposes that religions are primarily group-level adaptations that evolve by cultural group selection. His book ''Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives'' attempts to give an introduction to evolution for a broad audience, detailing the various ways in which evolution can be applied to everyday affairs. There is also a class at Binghamton University that is called "Evolution for Everyone" that has been taught since 2003. Wilson's book for a general audience, ''The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time (2011),'' describes how he started to apply evolutionary thinking to real-world settings in

Binghamton Binghamton () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the conflue ...

and elsewhere through the

. Wilson and his co-author

E. O. Wilson Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, entomologist and writer. According to David Attenborough, Wilson was the world's leading expert in his specialty of myrmecology, the study of an ...

have become well known for the quote, "Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary". This quotation appeared in their paper, "Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology". Wilson is Editor in Chief o
Prosocial World
��s online magazin
This View of Life
which features articles on all topic areas from an

evolutionary Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

perspective. Wilson's latest nonfiction book for a general audience is ''This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution'', published in 2019. The evolutionary biologist builds on decades of research to outline a paradigm-changing new approach to the applications of evolutionary theory in today's social and cultural institutions. Wilson's latest book, "Atlas Hugged" is a fiction, an answer to Ayn Rand's novel '' Atlas Shrugged''. Wilson's full list of academic publications may be found on hi
David Sloan Wilson Archive: all academic publications

References

External links

Wilson's personal homepage

* [https://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/evolution/mg19626281.500-evolution-survival-of-the-selfless.html "Evolution: Survival of the selfless" article written with E. O. Wilson in New Scientist, 03 November, 2007]
EVOS
Evolutionary Studies Program at Binghamton University *
Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology

David Sloan Wilson Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, David Sloan 1949 births Living people American geneticists Binghamton University faculty Extended evolutionary synthesis State University of New York faculty American atheists University of Rochester alumni Michigan State University alumni Harvard University staff Cognitive science of religion University of California, Davis faculty