David Sloan Wilson (born 1949) is an American evolutionary biologist and a Distinguished Professor

Emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at

Binghamton University The State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton) is a public university, public research university in Binghamton metropolitan area, Greater Binghamton, New York, United States. It is one of the four uni ...

. He is a son of author

Sloan Wilson Sloan Wilson (May 8, 1920 – May 25, 2003) was an American writer. Reporter Sloan was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, the grandson of U.S. Navy officer and Arctic explorer John Wilson Danenhower. Wilson graduated from Harvard University in 1942. ...

, a co-founder of Evolution Institute and a co-founder of Prosocial World. He has studied social evolution in Binghamton.

Early life and academic career

David Sloan Wilson is the son of the writer

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

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

. He completed his Ph.D. in 1975 at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...

. Wilson then worked as a research fellow in the Biological Laboratories at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

from 1974 to 1975. He held a dual position as research associate in zoology at the

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

and the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

from 1975 to 1976. After this he was a senior research officer at the

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

n 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 university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

, from 1977 to 1980. He served as an assistant and then associate professor at the Kellogg Biological Station and Department of Zoology of

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 a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

and the psychology of religion. 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 beha ...

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

Elliott Sober Elliott R. Sober (born 6 June 1948) is an American philosopher. He is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science. Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor Emeritus in the Depar ...

proposed a framework called multilevel selection theory, 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.

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: 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). VidLit Press. * Wilson, D.S. (2022) A Life Informed by Evolution (memoir). Wilson's book '' Darwin's Cathedral'' 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 and elsewhere through the Evolution Institute. Wilson and his co-author E. O. Wilson 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 of Prosocial World's online magazine ''This View of Life'', which features articles on all topic areas from an

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

ary perspective. Wilson's latest

nonfiction Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to present topics objectively ...

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

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

, an answer to

Ayn Rand Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; , 1905March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which s ...

's novel '' Atlas Shrugged''. Wilson's full list of academic publications may be found on his 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