This View of Life
Blog

The hardest thing for a fish to see is water. This adage aptly expresses the difficulty we have understanding our own cultures. We spot the foibles of other cultures--even our own cultures in the past--but are blind to our current foibles.

ProSocial.World, a project by David Sloan Wilson, is a practical method for improving the efficacy of groups and wellbeing of their members. Why not use the method in our own college classes?

Two new books published in 2018 emphasize the role of fa’asamoa in amplifying “sticky” cultural concepts or memes—football and tattooing—in cultural adaptation.

Crucially, the pattern of heightened reactivity and credulity toward potential threats characteristic of the conservative mind is not associated with fearfulness or timidity, but with confidence in the ability to triumph through force.

TVOL is pleased to explore the question “Is there a universal morality?” with the help of philosophers and scientists at the forefront of studying morality in light of “this view of life”. Our fifteen essayists provided a surprising diversity of answers to the question.

Wrangham's new book on the evolution of cooperation gets many things right. But he errs in thinking that he can develop his thesis without invoking group selection.

Models of ancestral environments are hard to construct and as a result such hypotheses are plagued with speculation. Where can we draw the evidence from?

The controversy over group selection that emerged in the 1960’s seemed as if one theory could be rejected in favor of another, but it was really more like monolingual people declaring each other to be confusing and wrong.

Unlike the industry leaders Adam Smith wrote about, when leaders of the gun industry pursue their “own interest” it does not promote the “interests of society.” It is harming society.

New research suggests there may have been Darwinian mechanisms behind the evolution of witch-hunting phenomena.