Extending Darwin's Revolution

Extending Darwin's Revolution – David Sloan Wilson & Robert Sapolsky

by https://wonderfest.org/#videos

Notes

• Mental models + genes determine how you think
• Whatever is sacred to you - you go in denial on that
• Understanding of evolution is complete once we integrate that with society (policy). That means biology + policy. Evolutionary thinking is relevant to policy
• Evolution turned selfish as a trend of 20th century. What caused it? People used to talk about society. Individualism trumped the social organism.
• Groups become externally cooperative, but not internally.
• Question of scale - we will not get true cooperation until we include all of ecology. Biosphere.
• Water strider - females like docile partners, and choose them - if they are free to move between male types into different pools
• Inclusive fitness theory - [1]
• Lynn Margulis - cells evolved as communities from bacteria, not as individuals. People are the newest twist. People suppressed disruptive individuals, usually.
• Policy should be a branch of evolutionary biology
• Rules for supercooperations, 8:
  • Strong sense of identity and purpose - who is in group, what roles are
  • Proportional cost and benefit - give and get equally
  • INclusive decision making, open transparent fair
  • Agreed upon rules of behavior.
  • Correction mechanism. Not hammer, but warniung enough. Graduated actions - corrections mechanism, ways to escalate
  • Fast and fair conflict resolution. By all parties.
  • Authority to self-govern. Must have elbow room.
  • Appropriate relations with other groups that embody same principles.
• Selfish gene theory. Is not an argument agains cooperation.
• Isaac newton was a devout Christian.
• Darwin's theory was disturbing because? it applied to small groups?
• Conscious evolution - that we can become part of something larger - gaia and superconscious evolution. This is still taboo. Evolution can become something larger.
• Behavior traits evolve just like physical biology. This is now known.