Adapt or Die: Taking Evolution Seriously for National Security

Adapt or Die: Taking Evolution Seriously for National Security

Speaker: Wilson, D.

Date: 28 June 2018

Speaker Session Preview

SMA hosted a speaker session presented by Dr. David Wilson (SUNY Binghamton) as a part of its SMA General Speaker Series. During this presentation, Dr. Wilson explained how evolutionary theory became gene-centric and why human social sciences “declared independence” from biology. This departure, he contends, explains why people often don’t consider studying a topic such as national security from an evolutionary perspective, despite the fact that words like “evolve” and “adapt” are frequently used when discussing national security. He then spoke about a variety of books, which display the advances in the study of human bio-cultural evolution that have been made over the past 30 years. He explained multi-level selection and how small groups have become the fundamental building blocks of large-scale societies through evolutionary and adaptive processes. Dr. Wilson concluded his presentation by stressing that merely becoming familiar with modern evolutionary science in relation to human affairs will enable US decisionmakers to apply evolutionary thinking to national security issues.

Speaker Session Audio File

Download Dr. Wilson’s biography and slides