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The religions of the world consist of religious images and religious behaviour. The images of the religions from the past and of present day religions, like gods, ghosts and worshipped ancestors, concepts of guilt, dogmatic teachings and ideas of the hereafter, are generally quite well known. Religious behaviour on the other hand, the actions which believers of a specific religion do or do not do, is often not that well known. For an understanding of religion however, religious behaviour is at least as important as the religious images.

Religious behaviour consists of actions and avoidances[link]

Religious behaviour consists of both religious actions and religious avoidances. Religious actions are also called 'ritual'. Religious avoidances are called taboos or ritual prohibitions.

Religious actions[link]

The two best known religious actions are prayer and sacrifice. The most general religious action is prayer. It can be done quietly by a person all alone, but people can also pray in groups using songs. Sacrifice is also a widely spread religious action. Prayer and sacrifice often form the basis of other, more complicated religious actions like pilgrimage, processions, or consulting an oracle. There are many rituals connected to a certain purpose, like initiation, purification and rituals in preparation of an important happening or task. Among these are also the so-called rituals of transition, which occur in important moments of the human life cycle, like birth, adulthood/marriage, sickness and death. A special religious action is possession and ecstasy. In many religious actions religious specialists like priests, vicars, rabbis, imams and pandits are involved.

Religious avoidances[link]

A religious avoidance is when a person desists from something or from some action for religious reasons. It can be food or drink that one does not touch because of one's religion for some time (fast). This abstinence can also be for a longer time. Some people do not have sex (celibacy). Or one avoids contact with blood, or dead animals. Well known examples are: Jews and Muslims do not eat pork; the celibacy of Catholic priests; the purity rules of Hinduism and Judaism. These avoidances, formerly also called 'taboos', are often about food and drink.

• speech; some words are forbidden (cursing)
• dying, death and mourning

Religious avoidances are often not easily recognisable as (part of) religious behaviour. When asked, the believers often do not motivate this kind of behaviour explicitly as religious. They often do not refer to their religious images (gods a.o.), but say the avoidance is because of health reasons, because of ethical reasons, or because it is hygienic. It is analysis that reveals the religious nature of this important part of religious behaviour.

Religious actions and religious avoidances can be combined and thus appear connected. One abstains for example from food or sex in preparation for an important ritual. That is why these religious avoidances are also called 'ritual avoidances'.

The study of religious behaviour[link]

Religious behaviour is seldom studied for itself. When it is given attention at all, it is usually studied as an illustration of the religious images, like in comparative religion and cultural anthropology, or as part of the study of man in the social sciences.

See also[link]

All the works of Th. P. van Baaren

In English: Th. P. van Baaren and H. J. W. Drijvers (Hrsg.): Religion, Culture and Methodology. Papers of the Groningen Working-group for the Study of Fundamental Problems and Methods of Science of Religion. - The Hague/Paris: Mouton & Co. (1973). 171 pp. (Religion and Reason. Method and Theory in the Study and Interpretation of Religion, Bd. 8)

N. Smart: The Religious Experience of Mankind; Charles Scribner's Sons 1969. C.P. Tiele: The History of Religion. London Trübner & CO 1880 J. Wach: Sociology of Religion. London Kegan Paul Trench Trubner & CO LTD. 1947.

in German: P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye: Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte. Freiburg 1887. G. Mensching: Die Religion. Schwab Stuttgart 1959. G. Van der Leeuw: Phänomenologie der Religion. Mohr Tübingen 1956.

Online resource[link]

• The study of religious behaviour, by J.P. Janssen

Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg at the 2010 Texas Book Festival
Born	(1933-05-03) May 3, 1933 (age 79) New York City, USA
Residence	United States
Nationality	United States
Fields	Theoretical Physics
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley MIT Harvard University University of Texas at Austin
Alma mater	Cornell University Princeton University
Doctoral advisor	Sam Treiman
Doctoral students	Orlando Alvarez Claude Bernard Lay Nam Chang Bob Holdom Ubirajara van Kolck Rafael Lopez-Mobilia John Preskill Fernando Quevedo Mark G. Raizen Scott Willenbrock
Known for	Electromagnetism and Weak Force unification Weinberg-Witten theorem
Influenced	Alan Guth
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physics (1979)
Notes He is married to the professor of law, Louise Weinberg.

Steven Weinberg (born May 3, 1933) is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles.

Biography[link]

Steven Weinberg was born in 1933 in New York City to Jewish immigrants Frederick and Eva Weinberg. He graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1950 in the same graduating class as Sheldon Glashow, whose own research, independent of Weinberg's, would result in them (and Abdus Salam) sharing the same 1979 Nobel in Physics (see below).

Weinberg received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 1954, living at the Cornell branch of the Telluride Association. He left Cornell and went to the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen where he started his graduate studies and research. After one year, Weinberg returned to Princeton University where he earned his Ph.D. degree in Physics in 1957, studying under Sam Treiman. Weinberg is an atheist.^[1]

Academic career[link]

After completing his Ph.D., Weinberg worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Columbia University (1957–1959) and University of California, Berkeley (1959) and then he was promoted to faculty at Berkeley (1960–1966). He did research in a variety of topics of particle physics, such as the high energy behavior of quantum field theory, symmetry breaking, pion scattering, infrared photons and quantum gravity.^[2] It was also during this time that he developed the approach to quantum field theory that is described in the first chapters of his book The Quantum Theory of Fields^[3] and started to write his textbook Gravitation and Cosmology. Both textbooks, perhaps especially the second, are among the most influential texts in the scientific community in their subjects.

In 1966, Weinberg left Berkeley and accepted a lecturer position at Harvard. In 1967 he was a visiting professor at MIT. It was in that year at MIT that Weinberg proposed his model of unification of electromagnetism and of nuclear weak forces (such as those involved in beta-decay and kaon-decay),^[4] with the masses of the force-carriers of the weak part of the interaction being explained by spontaneous symmetry breaking. One of its fundamental aspects was the prediction of the existence of the Higgs boson. Weinberg's model, now known as the electroweak unification theory, had the same symmetry structure as that proposed by Glashow in 1961: hence both models included the then-unknown weak interaction mechanism between leptons, known as neutral current and mediated by the Z boson. The 1973 experimental discovery of this Z boson was one verification of the electroweak unification. The paper by Weinberg in which he presented this theory was one of the highest cited theoretical works ever in high energy physics as of 2009.^[5]

After his 1967 seminal work on the unification of weak and electromagnetic interactions, Steven Weinberg continued his work in many aspects of particle physics, quantum field theory, gravity, supersymmetry, superstrings and cosmology, as well as a theory called Technicolor.

In the years after 1967, the full Standard Model of elementary particle theory was developed through the work of many contributors. In it, the weak and electromagnetic interactions already unified by the work of Weinberg, Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow, are made consistent with a theory of the strong interactions between quarks, in one overarching theory. In 1973 Weinberg proposed a modification of the Standard Model which did not contain that model's fundamental Higgs boson.

Weinberg became Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard University in 1973.

It is of special importance that in 1979 he pioneered the modern view on the renormalization aspect of quantum field theory that considers all quantum field theories as effective field theories and changed completely the viewpoint of previous work (including his own in his 1967 paper) that a sensible quantum field theory must be renormalizable.^[6] This approach allowed the development of effective theory of quantum gravity,^[7] low energy QCD, heavy quark effective field theory and other developments, and it is a topic of considerable interest in current research.

In 1979, some six years after the experimental discovery of the neutral currents — i.e. the discovery of the inferred existence of the Z boson — but following the 1978 experimental discovery of the theory's predicted amount of parity violation due to Z bosons' mixing with electromagnetic interactions, Weinberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, together with Sheldon Glashow, and Abdus Salam who had independently proposed a theory of electroweak unification based on spontaneous symmetry breaking.

In 1982 Weinberg moved to the University of Texas at Austin as the Jack S. Josey-Welch Foundation Regents Chair in Science and founded the Theory Group of the Physics Department.

There is current (2008) interest in Weinberg's 1976 proposal of the existence of new strong interactions^[8] -- a proposal dubbed "Technicolor" by Leonard Susskind -- because of its chance of being observed in the LHC as an explanation of the hierarchy problem.

Steven Weinberg's influence and importance are confirmed by the fact that he is frequently among the top scientists with highest research effect indices, such as the h-index and the creativity index.^[9]

Other intellectual contributions[link]

Besides his scientific research, Steven Weinberg has been a prominent public spokesman for science, testifying before Congress in support of the Superconducting Super Collider, writing articles for the New York Review of Books,^[10] and giving various lectures on the larger meaning of science. His books on science written for the public combine the typical scientific popularization with what is traditionally considered history and philosophy of science and atheism.

Weinberg was a major participant in what is known as the Science Wars, standing with Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, Alan Sokal, Lewis Wolpert, and Richard Dawkins, on the side arguing for the hard realism of science and scientific knowledge and against the constructionism proposed by such social scientists as Stanley Aronowitz, Barry Barnes, David Bloor, David Edge, Harry Collins, Steve Fuller, and Bruno Latour.

Weinberg is also known for his support of Israel. He wrote an essay titled "Zionism and Its Cultural Adversaries" to explain his views on the issue.

Weinberg has canceled trips to universities in the United Kingdom because of British boycotts directed towards Israel. He has explained:

"Given the history of the attacks on Israel and the oppressiveness and aggressiveness of other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere, boycotting Israel indicated a moral blindness for which it is hard to find any explanation other than antisemitism."^[11]

His views on religion were expressed in a speech from 1999 in Washington, D.C.:

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. "^[12]

He has also said:

"The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless."^[13]

He attended and was a speaker at the Beyond Belief symposium in November 2006.

Personal[link]

He is married to Louise Weinberg and has one daughter, Elizabeth.

Honors and awards[link]

The honors and awards that Professor Weinberg received include:

• Honorary Doctor of Science degrees from a dozen institutions: University of Chicago, Knox College, University of Rochester, Yale University, City University of New York, Dartmouth College, Weizmann Institute, Clark University, Washington College, Columbia University, Bates College.
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected 1968
• National Academy of Sciences, elected 1972
• J. R. Oppenheimer Prize, 1973
• Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, 1977
• Steel Foundation Science Writing Award, 1977, for authorship of The First Three Minutes (1977)
• Elliott Cresson Medal (Franklin Institute), 1979
• Nobel Prize in Physics, 1979
• Elected to American Philosophical Society, Royal Society of London (Foreign Honorary Member), Philosophical Society of Texas
• James Madison Medal of Princeton University, 1991
• National Medal of Science, 1991
• Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, 1999.
• 2002 Humanist of the Year, American Humanist Association
• Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences, American Philosophical Society, 2004^[14]
• James Joyce Award, University College Dublin, 2009

Selected publications[link]

Bibliography: books authored / coauthored[link]

• Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity (1972)
• The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe (1977, updated with new afterword in 1993, ISBN 0-465-02437-8)
• The Discovery of Subatomic Particles (1983)
• Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics: The 1986 Dirac Memorial Lectures (1987; with Richard Feynman)
• Dreams of a Final Theory: The Search for the Fundamental Laws of Nature (1993), ISBN 0-09-922391-0
• The Quantum Theory of Fields (three volumes: 1995, 1996, 2003)
• Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries (2001, 2003, HUP)
• Glory and Terror: The Coming Nuclear Danger (2004, NYRB)
• Cosmology (2008, OUP)
• Lake Views: This World and the Universe (2010), Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-03515-1.

Scholarly articles[link]

• Weinberg, S., A Model of Leptons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 19, 1264–1266 (1967) - the electroweak unification paper.
• Weinberg, S. & G. Feinberg. "Law of Conservation of Muons", Columbia University, University of California-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (Feb. 1961).
• Pais, A., Weinberg, S., Quigg, C., Riordan, M., Panofsky, W.K.H. & V. Trimble. "100 years of elementary particles", Stanford Linear Accelerator Center United States Department of Energy, Beam Line, vol. 27, issue 1, Spring 1997. (April 1, 1997).
• Weinberg, S. "Pions in Large N Quantum Chromodynamics", Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 261601 (December 20, 2010)

Popular articles[link]

• A Designer Universe?, a refutation of attacks on the theories of evolution and cosmology (e.g., those conducted under the rubric of intelligent design) is based on a talk given in April 1999 at the Conference on Cosmic Design of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. This and other works express Weinberg's strongly held position that scientists should be less passive in defending science against anti-science religiosity.

References and notes[link]

• His Nobel prize autobiography serves as a general reference to this article.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Steven Weinberg

• Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy
• Home Page of Steven Weinberg at University of Texas at Austin
• Steven Weinberg on LHC
• In CERN Courier, Steven Weinberg reflects on spontaneous symmetry breaking
• Oral history interview transcript with Steven Weinberg June 28, 1991, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
• Weinberg author page and archive from The New York Review of Books
• Publications on ArXiv

Pascal Boyer is a French anthropologist, and Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory at Washington University in St. Louis.^[1][2][3] He is a Guggenheim Fellow.^[4]

Work[link]

He advocates the idea that human instincts provide us with the basis for an intuitive theory of mind that guides our social relations, morality, and predilections toward religious beliefs. Boyer and others propose that these innate mental systems make human beings predisposed to certain cultural elements such as belief in supernatural beings.

Boyer has conducted long term ethnographic fieldwork in Africa, where he studied the transmission of oral epics, and has held teaching and research positions at several universities.

Books[link]

• Tradition as Truth and Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1992. ISBN 978-0-521-37417-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=C7cu0joBSM8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=pascal+boyer&ct=result#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
• The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1994. ISBN 978-0-520-07559-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=5jkhjMvYpa4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=pascal+boyer&ct=result#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
• Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought (2002) Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-00696-5.
  • Translated into Greek as Και ο Άνθρωπος Έπλασε τους Θεούς, by Dimitris Xygalatas and Nikolas Roubekas (ISBN 9789602882252).
  • Translated into Polish as "I człowiek stworzył bogów... Jak powstała religia?" (ISBN 8373379851).

See also[link]

• Evolutionary origin of religions
• Evolutionary epistemology
• Evolutionary psychology
• Faith and rationality
• Relationship between religion and science
• Cognitive science of religion
• Evolutionary psychology of religion

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

• "Why Is Religion Natural?", Sceptical Inquirer, Volume 28.2, March/April 2004
• Book review: Religion Explained, by Pascal Boyer

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Frans de Waal

Fransiscus Bernardus Maria (Frans) de Waal, PhD (born 29 October 1948, 's-Hertogenbosch), is a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He is the Charles Howard Candler professor of Primate Behavior in the Emory University psychology department in Atlanta, Georgia, and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center^[1] and author of numerous books including Chimpanzee Politics and Our Inner Ape. His research centers on primate social behavior, including conflict resolution, cooperation, inequity aversion, and food-sharing. He is a Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences.

Education[link]

De Waal studied at the Dutch universities of Radboud University Nijmegen, University of Groningen, and Utrecht. In 1977, De Waal received his doctorate in biology from Utrecht University after training as a zoologist and ethologist with Professor Jan van Hooff, a well-known expert of emotional facial expressions in primates. His dissertation research concerned aggressive behavior and alliance formation in macaques.^[2]

Career[link]

In 1975, De Waal began a six-year project on the world's largest captive colony of chimpanzees at the Arnhem Zoo. The study resulted in many scientific papers, and resulted in publication of his first book, Chimpanzee Politics, in 1982. This book offered the first description of primate behavior explicitly in terms of planned social strategies. De Waal was first to introduce the thinking of Machiavelli to primatology, leading to the label "Machiavellian Intelligence" that later became associated with it. In his writings, de Waal has never shied away from attributing emotions and intentions to his primates, and as such his work inspired the field of primate cognition that, three decades later, flourishes around themes of cooperation, altruism, and fairness.

His early work also drew attention to deception and conflict resolution, nowadays two major areas of research. Initially, all of this was highly controversial. Thus, the label of "reconciliation" which de Waal introduced for reunions after fights was questioned at first, but is now fully accepted with respect to animal behavior. Recently, de Waal's work has emphasized non-human animal empathy and even the origins of morality. His most widely cited paper [1], written with his former student Stephanie Preston, concerns the evolutionary origin and neuroscience of empathy.

De Waal's name is also associated with Bonobo, the "make love – not war" primate that he has made popular. But even his Bonobo studies are secondary to the larger goal of understanding what binds primate societies together rather than how competition structures them.

Competition is not ignored in his work: the original focus of de Waal's research, before he was well known, was aggressive behavior and social dominance. Whereas his science focuses on the behavior of nonhuman primates (mostly chimpanzees, bonobos, macaques, and Capuchin monkeys), his popular books have given de Waal worldwide visibility by relating the insights he has gained from monkey and ape behavior to human society. With his students, he has also worked on elephants, which are increasingly featured in his writings.

His research into the innate capacity for empathy among primates has led De Waal to the conclusion that non-human great apes and humans are simply different types of apes, and that empathic and cooperative tendencies are continuous between these species. His belief is illustrated in the following quote from The Age of Empathy:

“We start out postulating sharp boundaries, such as between humans and apes, or between apes and monkeys, but are in fact dealing with sand castles that lose much of their structure when the sea of knowledge washes over them. They turn into hills, leveled ever more, until we are back to where evolutionary theory always leads us: a gently sloping beach.”

This is quite opposite to the view of some economists and anthropologists, who love to postulate differences between humans and other animals. However, recent work on prosocial tendencies in apes and monkeys supports de Waal's position. For example, see the research of Felix Warneken, a psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. In 2011, de Waal and his co-workers were the first to report that chimpanzees given a free choice between helping only themselves or helping themselves plus a partner, prefer the latter.

In 1981, de Waal moved to the United States for a position at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, and took his current position at Emory and the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in 1991.

His 2005 book Our Inner Ape examines human behavior through the eyes of a primatologist, using the behavior of common chimpanzees and bonobos as metaphors for human psychology. He also writes a column for Psychologie, a popular Dutch monthly magazine.^{[citation needed]}

Quotes[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Frans de Waal

"The possibility that empathy resides in parts of the brain so ancient that we share them with rats should give pause to anyone comparing politicians with those poor, underestimated creatures."^[3]

"I've argued that many of what philosophers call moral sentiments can be seen in other species. In chimpanzees and other animals, you see examples of sympathy, empathy, reciprocity, a willingness to follow social rules. Dogs are a good example of a species that have and obey social rules; that's why we like them so much, even though they're large carnivores."^[4]

"To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us."^[5]

Awards[link]

Selected bibliography[link]

Books[link]

• The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society, 2009. ISBN 978-0-307-40776-4 (reviewed in American Scientist)
• Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved, 2006. ISBN 0-691-12447-7
• Our Inner Ape. New York: Riverhead Books, 2005. ISBN 1-57322-312-3
• Animal Social Complexity: Intelligence, Culture, and Individualized Societies, Edited with Peter L. Tyack. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-674-00929-0.
• My Family Album, Thirty Years of Primate Photography 2003.
• Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution, Harvard University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-674-00460-4.
• The Ape and the Sushi Master, Cultural reflections by a primatologist. New York: Basic Books, 2001. ISBN 0-465-04175-2
• Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes (25th Anniversary ed.). Baltimore, MD: JHU Press; 2007. ISBN 978-0-8018-8656-0.
• Natural Conflict Resolution. 2000 (with Filippo Aureli)
• Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. ISBN 0-520-20535-9 (with Frans Lanting)
• Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-674-35660-8
• Chimpanzee Cultures, Edited with Richard Wrangham, W.C. McGrew, and Paul Heltne. Foreword by Jane Goodall. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-674-11662-3.
• Peacemaking Among Primates. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-674-65920-1

Articles[link]

• 2010 "Towards a bottom-up perspective on animal and human cognition", Trends in Cognitive Sciences 201-207. May 2010
• 2009, "Darwin's last laugh", Essay, Nature 460, 175 (9 July 2009)
• 2008 "Putting the Altruism Back into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy", Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 59: 279-300
• 2007, "Bonobos, Left & Right" Skeptic, (8 August 2007).
• 2006, "Self-recognition in an Asian elephant", PNAS, vol 103, no 45, 17053-17057
• 2001, "Do Humans Alone 'Feel Your Pain'?" (Chronicle.com, October 26, 2001)
• 1999, "The End of Nature Versus Nurture", Scientific American, vol 281, no 6, p 94-99
• 1995, "Bonobo Sex and Society The behavior of a close relative challenges assumptions about male supremacy in human evolution", Scientific American, vol 272, no 3, p 82-88

See also[link]

• The Genius of Charles Darwin (documentary by Richard Dawkins including an interview with de Waal, also available in extended uncut form)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Frans de Waal

• TED talk by de Waal, summarising his work and interests. Includes clips of experiments.
• Living Links Center, currently directed by Frans de Waal
• Emory.edu - 'Frans B. M. de Waal, C. H. Candler Professor of Primate Behavior', Emory University faculty homepage
• 92Y.org 'Talking Primates with Dr. Frans de Waal' (August 25, 2005 Blog)
• AmericanScientist.org - 'The Bookshelf talks with Frans de Waal', American Scientist (2001)
• ITConversations.com - 'Frans de Waal, Comparative Primatologist' (includes mp3 audio clip; October 21, 2004)
• PaulaGordon.com - 'Natural Goodness', Paula Gordon
• PNAS.org - 'Profile of Frans B. M. de Waal', Regina Nuzz, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
• De Waal's editorial contribution to social psychology in Greater Good magazine
• BookTalk.org: online reading group discussion of Frans de Waal's "Our Inner Ape"
• BookTalk.org: book discussion of Frans de Waal's "Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved"
• Video (with mp3 available) of discussion with De Waal about aspects of primate behavior on Bloggingheads.tv

David Sloan Wilson
Born	1949
Fields	Evolutionary Biology, Anthropology
Institutions	Harvard University University of Washington University of the Witwatersrand University of California, Davis Michigan State University Binghamton University
Alma mater	University of Rochester (B.A.) Michigan State University (Ph.D.)
Doctoral students	Jonathan Gottschall[1]
Known for	Darwin's Cathedral Evolution for Everyone

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2011)

David Sloan Wilson (born 1949) is an American evolutionary biologist and a Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He is a son of the author Sloan Wilson.

Academic career[link]

Wilson graduated with a B.A. with high Honors in 1971 from the University of Rochester. He then completed his Ph.D. in 1975 from Michigan State University. He then worked as a Research Fellow in the Biological Laboratories at Harvard University from 1974-1975. He then held a dual position as a Research Associate in Zoology at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Washington from 1975-1976. After this he was a Senior Research Officer at the South African National Research Institute for the Mathematical Sciences from 1976-1977. Wilson then moved back to the United States and held an Assistant Professorship in the Division of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Davis from 1977-1980. He then served as an Assistant and then Associate Professor at the Kellogg Biological Station and Department of Zoology of Michigan State University from 1980-1988. Wilson was then promoted to full Professor of Biological Sciences at the State University of New York, Binghamton in 1988. He was then given a joint appointment as Professor of Anthropology in 2001.

Wilson started the Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) program at Binghamton University to provide a program that unifies 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 and the psychology of religion. There is also a required course called Current Topics in Evolutionary Studies where students attend weekly seminars with a discussion followed afterward. SUNY New Paltz has started a similar program.

Research[link]

Wilson is a prominent proponent of the concept of group selection (also known as multi-level selection) in evolution. He and Elliott Sober proposed a framework called multilevel selection theory, which incorporates the more orthodox approach of gene-level selection and individual selection, in their book Unto Others. This framework argues that while genes serve as the means by which organisms' designs are transmitted across generations, individuals and groups are vehicles for those genes and both are arenas for genes to act on. Indeed, genes themselves can be affected by selection, not just because of their effects on the design of their vehicle (the organism) but also because of their effect on the functioning of the DNA on which they reside. 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.

Publications[link]

Wilson's book Darwin's Cathedral proposes that religion is a multi-level adaptation, a product of cultural evolution developed through a process of multi-level selection for more cooperative and cohesive groups. 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", and students are required to read the book as part of the class.

Wilson's latest book for a general audience is The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time, published in August 2011. Wilson has also co-edited "Pathological Altruism" published by Oxford University Press in November 2011.

D.S. Wilson and his co-author E.O. Wilson (no relation) have become well known for the quote, "Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary." This quote appeared in their paper, "Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology."

Wilson is now a blogger for the ScienceBlogs,^[2] where he extensively discusses and defends both the theory of evolution and his multilevel selection model.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: David Sloan Wilson

• Wilson's personal homepage
• "Darwin's God" article in New York Times Magazine for March 4, 2007. Includes interview with Wilson.
• "Evolution: Survival of the selfless" article written with E. O. Wilson in New Scientist, 03 November, 2007
• EVOS Evolutionary Studies Program at Binghamton University
• Video: Ethics and the University
• Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology