The value of Darwinism

David Sloan Wilson, the author of the book The Neighborhood Project, argues that through an augmented understanding of evolution, we can solve many of society's problems.

By understanding “human nature” — that is, the behaviors and attitudes instilled in our ancestors by natural selection — we will, he claims, finally be able to solve problems like poor education, dysfunctional cities, bad economics, mental illness and ethnic cleansing. “Evolutionary science,” Wilson argues, “will eventually prove so useful on a daily basis that we will wonder how we survived without it. I’m here to make that day come sooner rather than later, starting with my own city of Binghamton.” “The Neighborhood Project” describes Wilson’s ambitious proposal for using evolutionary biology to raise up Binghamton, a down-at-the heels town of about 50,000 in upstate New York. An evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York there, Wilson formerly worked on toads and mites, but has now adopted his own town as a study organism.