Darwin Evangelist Preaches World Peace by Natural Selection

David Sloan Wilson is still at it, seeing
evolution as a hammer and every
human problem as a nail.

— This claim won’t take long to refute, but people should know how Darwine drunkards behave. —

David Sloan Wilson hasn’t kicked his Darwine addiction yet. He is still wobbling around the lamp post singing bar songs to King Charley, not enjoying a sober moment for at least 16 years since we saw him visualizing angel spirits emerging from The Origin of Species (2 May 2008). It requires a sober logical mind to realize that genetic determinism is self-refuting. Not much can be expected from someone who didn’t realize at the BAH! Fest that the joke was on him (9 Oct 2013).

In his drunken stupor, Sloan Wilson embodies the symptoms of the Yoda Complex. It would be funny except that this Man on a Darwin Mission, proud of his reputation among fawning peers at Binghamton University, and his “Evolution for Everyone” curriculum, is influencing other Darwine-oholics, some with political power and influence. Power can smother logic. Recall that the Soviet leaders loved their vodka but were able to send their opponents to Siberia. What would David Sloan Yoda Wilson do with global political power? Oh, don’t worry. Like the friendly space aliens, he just wants to serve man.

ProSocial World: How the principles of evolution can create lasting global change (Binghamton University, 19 April 2023). BU is proud of its “distinguished professor” despite his Darwine habit, and celebrates 20 years of Sloan Wilson’s Evolution Studies (EvoS) program. Reporter Jennifer Micale begins,

Evolution goes beyond the genetic code and the transformation of physical form, from land-mammal to whale or dinosaur to bird.

At the core of evolutionary science is a triad: variation, selection and replication, explains Binghamton University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences David Sloan Wilson, the founder of Binghamton’s Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) program. You can see this triad at work in culture as well, from economics and business, to engineering and the arts, and the functioning of society at all levels.

Knowing how cultural evolution happens also means we can harness it for the larger good, creating a more just and sustainable world.

Who is “we” in this Tontological sentence? If cultural evolution “happens” according to its Stuff Happens Law, then “who” is there among the “we” of evolved products to harness it? It seems that a rational, decision making, wise soul has snuck onstage from the wings.

Micale introduces the keynote speaker:

“We have to have the global good in mind and everything that we do in some sense has to be coordinated with the good of the whole,” Wilson said.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop right there! Wilson has just committed a logical foul. He has stolen a word from the Christian smorgasbord of values: “good” (to say nothing of other words like “sense” and “mind”). What is good in Darwinian evolution? Evolution is as evolution does. It kills and drives to extinction as easily as it pops eyes and wings into existence by chance. Wilson, nobody cares! There is no good in evolution. There is no sense in evolution. There is no mind in evolution. Stuff Happens, and that is it. There is no “has to” in genetic determinism. Who is David Sloan Wilson (hence DSW) to step outside of his evolved skin, put on a Yoda costume and tell his fellow meat robots that “everything that we do in some sense has to be coordinated”? By what authority?

DSW takes a moment to distance himself from the Social Darwinists. He thinks they are “bad” (which is the flip side of “good” — another a moral judgment only making sense in a system of non-evolving values).

Evolutionary concepts have been misused, however. Take social Darwinism, for example, which is often used to justify competition and harsh social inequities as “survival of the fittest,” a misunderstanding and misapplication of Darwinian theory. “Social engineering” also has insidious implications, Wilson noted.

That’s an odd thing to say. Darwin didn’t think “survival of the fittest’ was a misunderstanding and misapplication of Darwinian theory. He took Spencer’s phrase and used it in later editions of the Origin as a better representation of what he meant by natural selection. In The Descent of Man, he predicted that the stronger races would overcome the less-evolved races.

Note the unwarranted value judgments all over the place. He continues:

“We need to ask: Is there anything about evolutionary theory that is especially dangerous in that regard? Or is it the case that anything that can be used as a tool can also be used as a weapon?” Wilson asked. “I think it’s the latter.”

These concepts become weapons when they are used as means of control, with little to no input from the people they impact, he explained. When people decide to use evolutionary principles to shape their own actions and goals, however, these principles are largely benign.

Is anyone asking how a genetic determinist can “decide to use” any kind of principle? A principle implies a concept, which is not material. As a product of evolution, DSW cannot decide to do anything. His selfish genes are using him, not the other way around. If he did not in reality have a soul with a God-given conscience, he could not be saying any of this.

Does Natural Selection Have Design Principles?

One might think DSW is turning to intelligent design theory, the way he next talks about “design principles” with which to “decide to use” evolution to create a nicer world —

“To begin, you need to have a good, strong sense of identity and purpose; that’s the first core design principle,” Wilson said.

Other principles involve the equitable distribution of benefits and resources, inclusive decision-making, transparent behavior, and levels of response to helpful and unhelpful behavior, as well as fast and fair conflict resolution, local autonomy and authority, and relationships with other groups.

Redistribution, equity, inclusion; now DSW is showing his addiction to Woke Whiskey. Not surprising, since that brand is the best seller at faculty cocktail lounges in academia.

Did anyone need better evidence than this that Darwinism is a religion?

Don’t ever give these guys power. Like the pigs in Animal Farm, they believe in equality, all right. They believe in principles, all right. It’s painted on the barn: “All animals are evolved equal. But some animals have evolved more than others.” In his dear empathetic heart, DSW just wants to help people. He wants a better world. He wants sharing, cooperation and helpful behavior. He promises “parties and potlucks, which bring people together and encourage them to make connections,” without religion.

Oh, some sacrifices will have to be made. The haves will have to do with less as the fruits of their labor undergo “equitable distribution of benefits and resources” and are given to the have-nots. Must be inclusive. The horse will have to work itself to death building the windmill that the pigs decided is necessary for the greater good. Out of the kindness of their prosocial hearts, DSW and the other pigs may even put an extra flake of hay in the paddy wagon for his last ride to the slaughterhouse. It’s all for the greater good of the community. DSW promises to be nicer about it than the Orwellian pigs were. Maybe he will smile instead of snicker.

DSW’s crusade for Darwin—as self-refuting, inconsistent and illogical as it is—must be understood as a distortion of gifts God planted in every human heart: a soul, a conscience, and a thirst for meaning. “To begin, you need to have a good, strong sense of identity and purpose,” he said. That’s the imago dei speaking, not Darwin. Natural selection could not care less, because “care” is not in the Darwin dictionary. Stuff Happens. Who cares? ‘Oh, but unless we cooperate and work together on our own evolution, we’re likely to see a repeat of the atrocities of Social Darwinism,’ we can hear him complaining. DSW, you got it all wrong! You have to wait for a mutation to be selected by chance. You are a concourse of atoms being acted on by mechanisms. There is no “you” there to make decisions like that! Stop stealing from the Christian vocabulary; you’re stuck with the Darwin Dictionary. Thou shalt not steal, we shout to his conscience, hoping he will listen.

Instead of acting out Romans 1:18-25. We hope and pray DSW and those like him will listen to what Paul told Timothy, “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”