E.O. Wilson - Advice to Young Scientists

"The world needs you, badly." That's how celebrated evolutionary biologist and entomologist E.O. Wilson (also known as Darwin's heir, or the Lord of the Ants) begins this fascinating, amusing and inspirational TEDTalk presentation encouraging you, yes, you, to pursue a career in science and scientific research.

You may be apprehensive. You may think you're not smart enough, you may be uncomfortable with your own level of mathematical literacy, you may think that there's little you could discover, etc. Don't worry. Wilson himself is a prime example of modest beginnings overcoming adversity to achieve academic greatness, and as someone who's had to struggle with many things throughout his own professional life, he's gathered some tips and ideas that he's graciously willing to share with you, in the form of a few general principles, to help motivate you and guide you into the fascinating, meaningful and rewarding field of scientific research and discovery.

And in case you're wondering, yes, I am aware of the whole selfish-gene/inclusive fitness vs multi-level selection brouhaha that's recently exploded between people like E.O and D.S. Wilson on the one hand, and Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers and Steven Pinker on the other. My own ignorant take: E.O. Wilson is wrong to reject kin selection, and Dawkins and company are wrong to reject multi-level selection.

Still, the debate is fascinating, and as a public debate (and except when those involved resort to cheap ad hominem attacks), the ideas presented by both sides are raising the level of intellectual discourse to levels not common for the ordinary reader. Agree or disagree with his point of view, for instance, Dawkins' recent review of E.O. Wilson's latest book, while harsh, manages to provide a clear and powerful explanation of the nature of the debate, as well as his defense of the selfish gene hypothesis and inclusive fitness. Of course, things didn't end there, because then D.S. Wilson did his own review of Dawkins' review. Don't you just love it when things get meta? :)

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Jonathan Haidt - Religion, Evolution and the Ecstasy of Self-Transcendence

Among my favorite books of all time, Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" and "The Extended Phenotype" must be way up there. When it comes to massive and repeated assaults of intellectual stimulation, these books will give you a mindgasm. Hamilton's idea, and popularized by Dawkins, that the gene is the ultimate unit of selection, is an extremely fruitful and elegant way to explain otherwise counter-intuitive biological adaptations.

And yet, I don't think the selfish gene hypothesis captures the entirety of the idea of the unit of selection. I subscribe to multi-level selection theory, which has been spearheaded over the last few decades almost single-handedly by David Sloan Wilson (from whom I actually learned the stuff). As its name suggests, this broader theory argues that natural selection can take place at the level of genes, individual organisms or even groups, provided certain conditions are met.

When it comes to the evolutionary study of religion, there are various sorts of hypotheses. Dennett seems to favor a meme-based approach; Dawkins likes to think that it's either a programming bug or simply a byproduct of some other adaptation; and others think that religion is a legitimate adaptation on its own right. One of the most interesting (and possibly correct) hypotheses about the evolution of religion, you will not be surprised to hear, is Wilson's group selection theory: while competition is not always best within groups (because free-riders will exploit the nice altruistic suckers and drive them to extinction), it is extremely efficient when it comes to competition between groups. So, while religion may not always be all that good for the individual members of a religion, it definitely gives strength, resources, cohesion and power to groups. This might also be why religious people can't shut up about their beliefs :)

Anyway, in this somewhat bizarre TEDTalk presentation, psychologist Jonathan Haidt, while trying to say something profound about religion and self-transcendence, actually has more interesting stuff to say about group selection.

Try explaining massive-scale war on the selfish gene hypothesis... possible, but not entirely convincing.

If you're curious about David Sloan Wilson's approach to the scientific study of religion, you might want to check out this fascinating lecture.

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