Big Think Interview With Robert Wright | Big Think
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- Опубліковано 22 кві 2012
- Big Think Interview With Robert Wright
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A conversation with the author of “The Evolution of God.”
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Robert Wright:
Robert Wright is a journalist, scholar, and author of several best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology, history, religion, and game theory, including "The Evolution of God," "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny," "The Moral Animal," and "Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information." He is a visiting scholar at The University of Pennsylvania and Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. He is also the co-founder and Editor in Chief of Bloggingheads.tv, a current events "diavlog" featured in The New York Times and elsewhere.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Robert Wright: My name is Robert Wright, and people call me Bob. I’m Editor in Chief of Bloggingheads.tv and the author of several books, The Evolution of God, The Moral Animal, and Nonzero.
Question: Why has evolutionary psychology exploded in popularity?
Robert Wright: Well, I think it’s not surprising that evolutionary psychology should be occupying center stage given the fact that the human mind was created by evolution. So, in a way you can ask, why did it take so long? And I think the answer there is two-fold. First of all, there were some genuine kind of refinements, or extensions of the theory of natural selection in the 1960’s early ‘70’s that allowed us to make sense of the not obviously animal parts of human behavior and emotion. Things like altruism, love, the conscience, empathy. So there’s that. And separately, there had been some political resistance to the idea of using Darwin to think of human psychology. And that dates back to political things that have happened in the first half of the 20th century. So, at the same time that there was genuine progress in the field, there was a kind of slow kind of dissipation of the long-standing political resistance. But it wasn’t - it didn’t happen overnight. I mean, when I wrote The Moral Animal in 1994, there was plenty of resistance.
Question: What are the major unanswered questions in evolutionary psychology?
Robert Wright: I think, I really think that the big questions are kind of taken care of in evolutionary psychology. If you look at the landscape of human thought and feeling, the main contours are broadly speaking explained and it’s a question of working out the details. Now, there are little kind of riddles. I mean, there’s no consensus on the origin of, like laughter. And the answer there is, there’s probably no single answer. It’s kind of a lot of little thing converged, or laughter is something that in rudimentary form emerged for one purpose and was adapted for various other purposes. But I would say, in terms of the basic emotions that the govern our everyday lives, you know, ranging from fear to envy to joy and including these things like altruism and empathy, broadly speaking we now know why they’re here. And they seem to comply in their dynamics with what the theory would predict.
I mean, there is separately from that, the question of consciousness, but that’s a metaphysical conundrum that is not, per se, answered by evolutionary psychology, but the more I say about that the less sense I will seem to make. So, I’ll stop there.
Question: Is there a class of human behaviors that evolutionary psychology can’t illuminate?
Robert Wright: Religion is not an adaptation. That is to say, it’s not here because it was conducive to the replication of the genes underlying it. I mean, I think there are genes underlying religion in the sense that all the kinds of basic emotions that are part of religious experience, things like “awe” for example, and various kinds of superstitious intuitions and some of the various things that might make up religion do themselves have a basis in the genes. It’s just that those genes weren’t preserved by natural selection because they gave rise to what we now call religious behavior. So, I think religion as we think of it is largely a product of cultural evolution. It took shape in essence, you might say, after natural selection did its work.
Read the full transcript at bigthink.com/videos/big-think...
Robert Wright is at the TOP of my list of admirable people. He is a very deep thinker who has gained extraordinary insights. Yet he is humble. He conveys his thoughts in everyday language (as opposed to the stilted language of some intellectuals). He is very honest and seemingly devoid of bias. I've spent much of my 72 years studying toward understanding what is actually true of reality and human nature. Wright's insights (via his books, articles, videos) have contributed significantly to my understanding.
Both Evolution of God and Moral Animal are 2 of the best books ever written. Moral Animal is a must read for all people in this world.
I agree and it's great to see that at completely different ages we are able to find the same truths. openness and understanding are the best tools for making a better world.
Very lucky to have this guy as my lecturer. :)
Every human emotion is related to chemical composition with the human body and the brain wave they trigger. Human emotion, belief system and character is chemical. This means you can cure people of radicalization chemically by changing their chemistry.
Indeed you are.
is there a way to provide audio for the questions?
Moral progress is brought about by unwinable wars. If you can't defeat someone, you have no choice but to reach an agreement and part of that agreement is tolerance.
Yeah. Really recommend his books.
Big fan of bob. Also 3:03.
Bob, I really like the way you have broken down the development of different social and religious and governmental entities. The progress of moral progress is apparent but remains on a slippery slope, perhaps in spite of religion and because of the recent progression of sociopathic behaviors.. I tend to think we in america are moving in the direction of cultural ignorance and low level moral thinking; due in large part to popular decadent culture. the similarities of youth immorality is sad.
great, great guy
not hitchens and co. or william lane craig and co.
him
I love this guy. And his books are some of the best books ever written. But some of the things he says about religion is just not true. Morality has always been a part of religion. Just not a big part. I really hope he knows this. But it's kinda a big mistake to make. And all tribes have religion and many other things point to the fact that it is inborn just like language.
" _all tribes have religion and many other things point to the fact that it is inborn just like language_" I don't see that this is a logical consequence. It seems to me that the strong tendency to _assume agency_ is about sufficient to predict that societies will develop some sort of religious believes with high probability.
" _Morality has always been a part of religion._" How do you know?
ALL tribes do not have religion.
Caren Ami I study anthropology. If you compare 1 God many gods religions they always have the moral aspects and ideas. Band religions have the "gods don't like when you do this" stories or the "gods have done this and been punished so you can learn from this".
cheddyrod Mr. Genius with 1 sentence facts. I have only heard of 1 culture/tribe that didn't have a religion but they forces themselves to not have one and I am pretty sure they have a religion if you look closely. All tribes have a religion.
Wright's explanations of genetic mechanisms and other concepts are too vague to be informative. He provides provocative statements but does not develop them into concepts that can be discussed with any academic rigor. In the opening chapter of The Moral Animal he writes that feminists are "in a state of disorientation”, and takes on creationists too-ideology filters into his discussion of scientific ideas, and pot-stirring seems to take precedence over theoretical development. He is an eloquent writer, but what he writes is not science.
Consciousness is a metaphysical conundrum? Why is a scientist talking about metaphysics? There is only the physical, right? He is a scientist. He can't talk about what exists that is not physical because the nonphysical is not falsifiable. Even a human personality and especially the products of the personality, leave physical traces.
sorry to disagree but while I find Robert Wright intelligent and has well formed ideas, I get the impression his uses his intellect to support some preconceived ideas rather than applying his skills to discover truth whatever he finds it to be.