all right another fun conversation and controversial topic with Dr Samuel Wilkinson from Yale University we talk
about Evolution and there's going to be a broad spectrum on the in this audience of you know those who don't want to
touch Evolution with a 10-ft pole those who are looking at okay some natural selection intelligent design etc etc
this conversation assumes at a minimum an intelligent design where there is
science that is meeting up with purpose of God and and the Plan of Salvation and
the creation and if that's the case how might this look to have gospel
principles actually produced out of biology and uh intelligent design or or
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go all right welcome to Quick show my name is Greg Matson and I am your host in this episode we brought on Dr Samuel
Wilkinson associate professor of psychiatry at Yale University he is also the associate director at the Yale
depression research program Dr Wilkinson welcome to the program thank you thanks
for having me on all right so you've recently written a book uh called purpose let me get the
full name here purpose what evolution and human nature imply about the meaning
of our existence uh I think it is implied in the in the title here kind of
what it's about but will you go into a little bit about what your objective is and or was in writing this book yeah uh
I'd be happy to I decided to write this book long time ago 15 years ago when I
was I was actually a first year medical student um and I when I started medical
school I had I just my wife and I had just married and for whatever reason at
this time I I studied engineering as an undergraduate and so had you had to take
some biology courses but for whatever reason at this time this I had this
sense that what I was learning and in school in um uh science was in conflict with the
sense that I had that that most people have that you know life has purpose and value and in meaning and the sense that
we were created for a purpose uh that that seemed to be in conflict in my mind
and I went through this period several months really where where uh I was just kind of wrestling with this
and I you know after a lot of study and reflection and prayer and meditation I I
I had this just experience this Epiphany where seemed things seem to come together and and at least in my mind fit
together in a in a beautiful way and I decided at that point I was going to write a book uh I tried to write a
little then and I had to put it on the side while I finished med school and trained and started my family um and
then I was able to pick it back up a couple years ago and um and it came out
in in March of 2024 so um really that can kind of come this whole whole
process okay and so do you feel that
you're in writing the book then you're trying to you're trying to bring the two
together then right you're trying to bring science and religion together yeah because it's obvious right you've got people on a spectrum
where they won't even look at Evolution as an option right because for them they see it there's been so much talked about
with it it's so driven by a secular honestly
atheistic uh uh point of view and narrative that people are like they're going to shun it right it's like I don't
even want to deal with this I don't even want to look at it and many will just be completely anti-evolution saying that they don't
mesh right is your hope a little bit that this is not just a a bridge that you're creating but maybe you're you're
you're giving some thought to a way that people can reconcile this for themselves yeah yeah that's that's what I hope with
the with the book is that I can bring these worldviews a little bit closer together what would you say is the
core battle between evolution and
religion there's a lot of them and there are two that I really try to address in
this book um and they they butt up against others as well but one is this
there's this perception that Evolution was this totally random and halfhazard process right and if if that is the case
um then it would be hard to figure out how we could really have purpose and it
it seems in congruent with you know a God that had a a purposeful and
intentional um Act of Creation right and that uh so so that's kind of one issue
right this notion that Evolution was totally random and haphazard and unguided and so forth um the other
aspect of it is what evolution if it is true and is responsible for you know our
bodies what it implies about human nature and and human psychology so those are those are at least two kind of uh
things that for me were really off-putting and and I think it had more to do with my limited understanding of
what the science suggests and what it implies about you know kind of this this overall framework well talk about that a
little bit then though so you went through in the book and you talk about this Randomness and and how that is kind of I mean that's really what Darwin was
saying this is all built on Randomness natural selection you know there's the
but you're writing in the book with a the objective at least for
the reader to understand that evolution is not random yeah or at least if there
is Randomness in evolution it is very limited yeah yeah that's right so I mean
I think it is a combination of both random and non-random things like for instance your eye color may be
determined by a random reassortment of your parents genes but the fact that you have eyes and they're structured the way
they are that seems to the there's a lot of non-randomness there that almost like
an in inevitability in biological m matter that that your eye is structured
the way it is so so you know evolutionary theory posits that you know
we have this common ancestor and we each went our separate ways and over time you know through part random but also part
environmental necessity uh we've kind of fallen into these different uh
structures and and ecological niches is one way you could frame it um but you
when you look at the broader picture you say you see that there are these patterns recurring over and over again
so I mentioned eyes you know humans have the same type of eye that a squid or an octopus does but we each develop them
independently and they're you know they for all intents and purposes it's the exact same biological structure and so
you think you know what okay what is the probability of it happening once randomly that's you know maybe I can
believe that but then it happens twice with the exact same structure and you're
like H there may be some something going on here and you know it's not just eyes
pretty much every biological structure has developed more than once so you get
this sense very quickly that you know it's not just one random thing after another there's a pattern here and
there's a lot we don't know exactly about how nature um and or God if you you want to
bring that into how what laws were used to shape these things certainly the
principle of of natural selection we can get into what that that is plays a big role uh but there seem to be kind of um
constraints or or laws that have kind of shifted it to go in One Direction and
and not the other um and you would attribute attribute that to sort of an
intelligent design well uh I I wouldn't I I don't
know exactly so so there's some people who think okay there's natural law right
there are constraints that have kind of guided um the the mutations to go in One
Direction and not the other there are other people who say well you know at some point God kind of put his finger in
the in the primordial soup and kind of nudg it one way I don't really know [Music]
um whether it's one or the other probably a you know combination um I I
do think we were designed um in the the phrase intelligent design is is linked
with kind of a a group at the the Discovery Center I think is what it's called based out of Seattle um uh with
Bill demsky and so other they're very very intelligent people I mean I think one of the things that they are um their
approach is to say Well they're these kind of holes in evolution which which they're admittedly are and they're very
very smart people but they're in some ways you might say that they're looking for God in the gaps of our understanding
which one of the tricky things with that is that as science progresses our
understanding the gaps in our understanding tend tend to close um so I
I'm not necessarily trying to fight against Evolution I I well let me just say something real quick on that Sam so
I think that at least there I I don't know that there they that group is uh
I've listened to them speak many times and read some stuff from them but I don't know if that group is pushing off
on Evolution as much as they are as you said they're they look at Darwinism and
say well wait a minute are some serious gaps as you said in the in Darwinism yeah but as a whole with Evolution they
seem to kind of go along with it don't they I mean they they're kind of saying there's a form of evolution natural
selection certainly but there are problems with the idea that maybe we come from a
single cell and that we've developed from a single cell yeah all the way to human beings yeah um yeah so uh I'm
trying to remember his name writes the edge of evolution that that you know Evolution does happen but there are
limits to how kind of much structural change you can get from Evolution um in
some ways we just need to be really careful about making sure we're using the terms consistently because in in
many ways I do agree with a lot you know I certainly don't think it was random and and what what you mean when you say
Darwinism uh we could spend a lot of time unpacking what that means I I
believe and we we can get to this I believe that natural selection has shaped human nature for both better and
For Worse um I am skeptical also that there was only one single cell you we
talk about all these things developing independently I don't know why there couldn't have been many in uh original
cells or or life forms whatever um I don't necessarily go there uh I try to
stay with uh quote accepted mainstream science um mainstream science does
generally think that there was one original cell uh I think it's because they can't haven't really thought about it that you know it's just kind of been
an assumption that has been passed down uh since uh Daron first published the Origin of Species in
1859 um for me it's not that important that wasn't one of the sticking points of of oh you know uh this theory of
evolution is doesn't mesh well with me for for some people I understand that may be an issue but I I don't
necessarily go there um I I it's I don't know how you could look at the broader evidence and say this was
totally random because there are whether it's natural laws whether you know God was putting his finger in the suit I I
don't exactly know but you clearly see that there's a pattern here um and
there I one of the anecdotes in the book is how Richard Dawkins would agree with
this right Richard Dawkins he made this point by asking one of his for those of you know Richard Dawkins is probably one
of the most outspoken atheists of of Our Generation a very uh famous evolutionary biologist who asked one of his friends
can you think of quote good ideas that that have evolved only once and his friend could only think of a handful so
um clearly a big part of this is that you know eyes are going to be helpful for any creature that you know where the
properties of light exist um Wings might be helpful for some creatures that sort of thing so they've evolved many many
different times but I also think there's some deeper kind of structures to biology that have
kind of pushed it to go in One Direction and not the other deep deeper structures
that were put in by God well yeah I mean in our specific
Doctrine I think there's a little bit of um you know it's to me it's not clear whether God designed the laws of nature
or understood them and mastered them you know I I don't really know hopefully one
day we'll figure out um but um yeah I mean I think there was a there
was a a deity behind this in some way right okay so and somehow he's taking
what already you know let's just call them how do we call them because this is kind of tricky
but Eternal natural laws sure yeah something like right and and using that
and using it for good uhuh in a sense okay so you talk about about uh how the
development of social structures and you know individuals and social
structures are developed through
Evolution will you go into that a little bit in other words you talk about altruism versus selfishness and how
these work you talk about both a positive and a negative of these yeah um so this principle of natural selection
and maybe another way to to to use this is with the phrase survival of the
fittest um most people are going to more intuitively understand what that means and this phrase came out was not coined
by Darwin but by another biologist around that time uh and um when you
think when most people think about survival of the fittest I think intuitively what they think about are
the negative aspects of of human nature that might predominate in a you know
quote darwinian Paradigm um but over time you know biologists and
psychologists have have recognized that well you know animals and people are
we're not exclusively selfish so there's something going on right um in religion
you have this conundrum of well if God is good why is there evil and in in in
in a darwinian paradigm it would kind of flipped it on its head if if you know
survival of fittest is the ruling Paradigm how come there is is good and
and there's lots of potential ways that altruism or you know goodness may have
developed I think the most compelling one has to do with what is called the levels of selection so this issue it it
flips his phrase and says well survival of the fittest what are we talking about survival of the fittest individual or
are we talking about a survival of the fittest family or group and when you
think about the different social traits that would emerge from those different
levels they are in many respects in opposition to one another so let let me
just if I can drive this point home with a an anecdote so in 1864 this is a an
analysis that I borrow from a a colleague of mine at Yale Nicholas christakis but in 1864 which is
coincidentally the same year that this phrase Sur he's great by the way yeah no I I yeah I'm I'm a a big fan of his
writing in 186 4 which is the same year that this phrase survival of Fitts was coined there were two shipwrecks that
occurred at the same time and place in what are called the Auckland Islands uh about 300 miles south of Mainland New
Zealand now the first ship was led by a man named Thomas Musgrave and after about 18 months uh fortunately all of
the the crew from his uh shipwreck his ship survived the second ship was led by
a man named George algaro and unfortunately most of the crew from his ship died and so you think well what was
the key difference and the difference was that uh Musgraves group formed this
remarkably cohesive you know social organization and this was epitomized
when Musgrave himself he he carried an injured man on his back and within the first you know minutes of the Shipwreck
as he swam to the safety of the shore and D Garner group they unfor to kind of adopted this every man for himself
approach and they left a wounded man behind to die uh within the first few days of shipwreck as they search further
Inland for food and so you see that like in some cases it's going to be altruism
and cooperation and so forth that is beneficial to survival and so
forth does that make sense do you see how it's not just selfishness right
right I yeah there there would be um selfishness and other words survival of
the fittest it's it's kind of like what they do with who is it wall that uh that
talks about the chimpanzees and their survival and how they work together and the ones that actually are too selfish
the group comes in and actually kills that chimpanzee yeah whereas the if a
leader is more open and supportive of of the group then they're going to last
longer yeah right so it yeah there there are certain things the question though that comes up then is between these two
captains or leaders of these groups then you're saying that biology has brought
in both elements yes one is you one is from biology that says you know yeah I'm
selfish and I'm not going to take care of these men as well and the other one is I'm going to do what it takes for everybody and they're going to see that
and these are both driven by Evolution you know my my question though is doesn't that completely remove free will
or agency right is the difference the man and his choices or is the difference
that you know because it's like you have a quote actually here from a uh theodosius duoni
in 1964 who proclaimed nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of
evolution yeah so in that example it seems like well if it's all looking through Evolution
it's both human beings both Circ similar circumstances
both same environment if solution is explaining both sides it seems to me
like it removes the soul right it removes Choice
yeah um I I'm not intending to make that argument what what I believe I I'm using
the example of the two shipwrecks to show how in contrary to I think most
people intuitively think when they think about Evolution there are ways in which Evolution also created cooperation
ability to cooperate ability to be altruistic and and so forth I think in our our ancient history both of these
levels have played important roles and they have built within us these competing dispositions right it's it
doesn't take long to look through the history of human nature of of humanity and to see terrible examples of
selfishness in which we've treated each other in unspeakably violent terrible
ways but we can also see you know the moral Heroes those who have kind of he
did the the quiet stirring of of the soul to treat each other kindly to cooperate and and to sacrifice ourselves
for the benefit of others I think this is what I refer to as the Dual potential of human nature and I think that that
you know Evolution through God you is is the way that this was this was put into our
bodies you know I in in in scripture we talk about the natural man but there's
also references to how there is goodness within the body right you're the temple of God and and so I think you
know I think we have both capacities built into our flesh
and when you combine that with the the experience that we do have that that we
have the ability to choose to me it seems like life is a test right we we
have this ability to choose and literally Lally within our DNA we are pulled in different directions you know
we we have competing desires and and and I do believe in Free Will where that
comes from um you know from a secular perspective I I I don't know I can give a good answer or how it develops from
infancy to adulthood in a given individual there's still a lot there but I think the evidence is compelling from
psychology and and other fields that that we do within a within constraints
we do have the ability to choose and so I think this is Paramount to one of the purposes or exist I think Evolution
build our bodies probably Free Will is related to the spirit and and soul in some way um I can't tell you the the
mechanisms but um but I think that life is a test and you can kind of connect
the dots as it were by you know by connecting a lot of this evolutionary
psychology and biology with with this notion of of of free will yeah because I
mean well I'll get back to the Free Will here in a minute but here's here's so just because I think this is an
interesting concept right what you're saying you're saying that the development of the human being through
Evolution right is producing both good and bad yeah right and so for as as an
example and you give some of these examples but one example is okay it's evolution is actually
creating uh helping to create social structure structure such as family yep
and tribes and other ways that that individuals and groups can
survive right through through the you're I mean you're attributing it to Evolution to saying that evolution is is
producing these things and so it's natural to have within us say for example some tribal feelings because
those were things that helped us to survive yep in the past and that this is both I mean you can look at that as both
a positive right I mean family is pretty positive yep right but but also it can bring in a
negative nature right of exclusion of racism out bias yeah yeah or any other
biases right yeah yeah I mean sex would be another example right I mean if if if
sex is a physical biological um um
force in us than than it can be used for good or for bad so the promiscuity on
one end on the other hand you know it's like okay there's a restraint in an order of monogamy and and and producing
families and Etc yeah yeah so I I extend
this to the you know one of the things you sometimes read in the popular press is that it's
not in our nature to be monogamous right and that has always annoyed me but I can
see that there's some truth in that but it's not the complete picture right we do have that capacity but we do also
have the capacity to be monogamous and in in a very real way you know we are we
are pulled in in different directions uh and and you know there are definitely
real sex differences between men and women and and in sexual desire and so forth but in a in a real way I think we
have the capacity for promiscuity but also the capacity for uh long-term pair
bonding as as using secular language yeah so another point you made and you
brought this up a couple times about a test I'm going to take this out as a quote here in the book it says as we
consider these principles it would seem that the purpose of our existence or at least one such purpose is to choose
between these competing Natures yeah to choose between altruism and selfishness
cooperation and aggression love and lust in language that has largely been
discarded a fundamental purpose of our existence is to choose between the good
and evil inherent within within us life is a test yeah so I I I just think
that's a really interesting perspective again that just says look Evolution uh if you're going to buy into
that and into Evolution you're saying that Evolution actually produces one of what we would believe certainly in
Latter-Day Saint circles is one of the primary purposes for us even being here
yeah yeah and it's kind of like inherent in the laws of nature at least it is
from my perspective which was I I I you know I mentioned this this experience I had
when I was a medical student I just remember kind of these these things coming together and it was just it was
to me it's beautiful yeah so and and now you said also in here that you you were drawing
on a number of different disciplines as you went through I mean you're you're an expert in Psychology how would you see that
fitting into all of this a little bit more I mean I know we've talked about family structure different things like that but you you focus in on on mental
health and depression and issues like that how would that fit into this this
structure this dichotomy that that uh that Evolution would be producing well
you know so I focus a lot on depression and uh in in some ways I I I have a lot of
this in in this book the book purpose that we're talking about of what is you know what is it that we
find in life that helps give us meaning and purpose and happiness and a big you
the the answer that we keep coming back to in psychological science is that relationships are foremost and
fundamental the most important factor in human flourishing and well-being and so forth um what's less clear is where that
comes from okay uh and again I'm I'm I'm trying to stick to science and in a kind
of a secular uh logic here what I am suggesting is that a big part of that
comes from the way that nature shaped our psychologies and uh you know
certainly uh social relationships have always served us well uh a lot of it
also I think comes from the way that nature shaped the parent
child relationship so this gets into is called attachment Theory um this is this
was largely laid out by a psychiatrist a British psychiatrist named John bulby in
the mid mid 1900s um bulby came of age
professionally at a time when and Freudian theories still held a lot of
Sway and there was a sense in the early 1900s that relationships weren't really
important they were just a means to an end okay the the infant loved the mother because she gave the infant milk the the
man loved the the wife because she gave him sex and you very transactional and
bulby recognized that that didn't really explain the complexity of human interaction and even really animal
interaction he observed he he formed relationships with those who studied animal behavior and recognized that they
had long kind of recognized that relationships uh in and of themselves were help were were something important
just for animal behavior and and so B recognize this this interesting aspect
of human nature which is that human infants when they are born they are
utterly and completely helpless and we are kind of at one end of the biological
Spectrum in this regard so like you know a fo a giraffe can like walk within a few days of of being born but we uh
human beings we need we are utterly dependent on the care of our parents for
the better part of 15 years and um so what what
BBY he he theorized as well okay there has to be a strong reciprocal attachment
from the part of the parents there has to be a strong sense of love and care and concern um otherwise the child would you
know would not survive and and that's exactly what happens every anyone who has had a child can remember you know
just especially the first child this deep sense of love that you have and and
I think that is kind of inborn into it that that's built into us by the way
that God created us okay and so so that I think that that strongest form of love
between you know parent and child that has to do with the the kind of the root
of of human happiness and well-being and it as bulby recognized and as subsequent you know psychologist psychiatrist
recognize this this the parent child interaction forms the basis for all kind of subsequent relationships in in life
and if if that relationship that Primal relationship is is not good it's it's
unfortunately really hard for that person as as they develop um in their other social
interactions so how would you see then is evolution then a producer of of
this this uh special relationship we have then because because of how we're
born and and we're so reliant on our parents is that all due to
Evolution well I mean let me just say real quick I'm sorry so I I I really
appreciate the direction you've gone with on this book and and and you're you're trying to take a a uh what we
know from Academia what we know from from science and and trying to take a faithful approach and say this is how
I've pulled all this together and I see all this and it's beautiful and and so
you're focused on that end of it I I I just I'm just I'm just trying to figure out where is the spirit with this in
terms of how do I how do I see that and and Free Will
which I wanted to get to how do I see that within this developed and godu
guided um mortality yeah well mostly I
don't know there's just so much we don't know about the spirit because we don't do experiments on yeah I I think I I I
get what you're saying and some people could say well this is a is a cynical point of view right I only love my kids
because they have my jeans and I would frame it as well that is how God Made
You God Made You such that you have a deep love for your family and you know the evolution in a certain framework is
very Pro family right um so going back to this this issue of you know the the
the importance of relationships for human happiness and flourishing If
evolution is somehow responsible at least on some level for that phenomena
then I would argue that the the most relevant relationships biologically are
family ones are are there therefore the most important for our happiness and
wellbe and that is the way that we are psychologically and evolutionarily
engineered you know that's that's how God God made us such that our families
are of utmost importance in in our well-being okay does that make sense
that does make sense so the the short answer is I don't know you know I can't do experiments that test the spirit you
know we we there's just a lot that's not open to our understanding um so you know
I I therefore stick with kind of what we what we can grasp and infer from from
science and secular S no I actually really really appreciate the approach I mean because if if you if you you know
whether you because this audience is going to be on a wide spectrum here as far as their belief in evolution and how
much of it in intelligent design and everything else but but I think that if you take the perspective of of evolution
and say okay well if evolution is the right way that we have become come here
physically then then if God guided this in this way with
these natural laws then it's a way for him to provide
for us to be who we're supposed to be right it it's a way for him to show
his love and and uh creation through creation of who we are and and and
provide everything from the sustenance in creation to the ability to be tested
and choose yeah yeah um yeah I like that and let me
just share one aspect that I think is interesting about this so if you if you agree with me and you think that
Evolution at least in part is responsible for kind of the way that we've developed let's go back to this
principle of of the strong love that develops between parents and child okay
um you get into this notion of that you have to have opposition or or at least
you can't have this deep love without compelling sacrifice right so let's say you line up 10 parents and you say what
is the most rewarding thing you've done nine out of 10 of them will say raise my kid okay and you if you ask them another
question what's the most challenging thing you've done nine out of ten of them will say raise my kid yeah right
and and from an evolutionary Paradigm those two are like inseparably connected
right it we let me let me do I like a point with this imagine what life would
be like if we were say seahorses okay so seahorses obviously are different than
us in many ways one of the ways is that well males in in seahorse males get
pregnant so that would obviously there would be some very different parental lead policies probably uh the other the
other way they're different is that once the seahorses are born like the the parents don't look out for them it's
just like okay goodbye good luck I hope you don't get eaten you know pass on the jeans and you know hope you hope you
survive right I if no one knows exactly what it'd be like to be a seahorse but
it's a good bet that they don't have a deep kind of sense of love and care and concern for their kids because they have
a different like survival strategy they have 2,000 kids all at once and that's
enough that some of them eventually survive without the parental care so you
know you get this sense that you know if if evolution is responsible for at least the the the feelings of love we have in
the flesh then you can't have this deep love without this compelling sacrifice
right it's because our kids are so immature when they're born that that that we love that you know that's
related to our deep love for them so you can't have this really deep rewarding
sense of Parenthood without it also being extraordinarily challenging um does that make sense yes so it's like at
the Confluence of biology and psychology at least you know these two things of of love and sacrifice are related no that's
fascinating that that's pretty cool now going again back to natural selection on
this with the survival of the fittest you know this is this comes out politically with a very uh stringent
libertarian point of you you know Live and Let Live yeah and and do your best
based on your own merits basically right very an rine or Iran type of a type of a
a thought who was atheist and but don't want to won't you end up eventually if
if everything is moving towards survival of the fittest through natural selection it's saying okay what am I
doing against my competitors not only my competitors that are also let's say
prey but also those that are after me right so I am going to get better and
better I'm going to be more camouflaged I'm going to be faster uh because those
are the ones that make it and so those are the ones that are going to be passing on their genes and and uh and
and improving and improving while on the other side let's say that you're talking about a gazelle right on the other side
you've got the tiger who or or the lion let's say the lion that is also going
through natural selection and the ones that are surviving are the fiercest and the strongest and the fastest and the
ones that are able to get the gazelle yeah as well so it seems like your your natural selection through EV you know
evolution is just producing more and more hyper hyper
competitiveness with all of these groups where does that lead to you know eventually it's like is everybody just
in an equilibrium as they go through this process and if that's the if that's the case what is the point of it in the
first place um what is the point of it in the first place I that's a that's an
interesting question I I don't think that natural selection is the only thing that has guided Evolution I I do think
it's a big thing uh but I don't think it's the only thing um and and this goes back to the the findings about how there
are these patterns that occurred over and over and over again I think there are these maybe these deep deeper laws
that kind of constrain Evolution to go in certain directions and not others I mean yes there you can look around the
natural world and find lots of examples of competition um but you also find examples Co of cooperation right and so
say you know in our ancient history there were two tribes that were poised to compete for some resource you know
access to a river whatever say instead of competing they chose to cooperate and
make an irrigation system they would have done even better than a you know in a in a parallel universe the two same
groups that chose to kind of fight out and and so forth so um I I think again
both of these levels especially in human evolution have been really important and
have um you know led to the development of of these kind of Waring desires and
and Natures within us so uh I mean the the other question is what if if this is
the mechanism by which creation happened why did God choos this you know I don't know I I can't answer that question why
didn't God just make us all in heaven so we didn't have to go through that there may be you know I think there is this
necessity of struggle right that that's that's part of the reason that that at least we think that that we're here so I
can't answer all the questions these are deep mons philos philos questions um all
right let me go back again then over to to finally get over to Free Will here and and talk about that a little bit you bring up a couple of uh categories or
arguments to fall into these two categories one is determinism and I don't mean I don't know if I'm gonna I haven't even heard this word before
epiphenomenalism um will you bre briefly go over those two and talk about how that fits into what you're talking about
yeah so this is this is from the area where I talk about Free Will right so as you know as most people know there are a
lot of really smart people who think that Free Will is Just an Illusion and so I lay out my best efforts to kind of
show how actually the data uh from my frame from from my perspective show that
no no free free will is a real thing and and um the way I do this is these two
these two kind of uh concepts of deter ISM and
epiphenomenalism are some of the common arguments that free will deniers
will use to say yeah this is just an illusion so so determinism is essentially that the the present and the
future are completely determined by the past right these you have these laws of
nature that are in motion and and molecules are moving around and nothing can change them they're just they're
just determined before him that everything that we do including this conversation was predetermined by you
know at the time of the Big Bang all right that you know the next time that Haley's Comet passes through the inner
solar system is as determined as who you will marry which um I think most people
intuitively find a little bit absurd if if I can use that that strong of language but the as far as we can tell
um behavior and even of relatively simple organisms is not deterministic it
it and I'm I'm fine to categorize it as probabilistic I think even human behavior can be considered probabilistic
if it weren't that way then things like policies and laws and so forth wouldn't really have much of of an effect but
there but it's not completely deterministic so we sometimes I think people mistakenly get the sense that oh
we're so we're learning so much more about genetics that we can predict you know the time someone was born what kind
of things they're going to choose in their life and and that's just so far from where we are in biology and
psychology that um it's just a little bit absurd so I use examples of basic organisms very
very simple organisms compared to humans at least where their behaviors are not
are not deterministic okay um epiphenomenalism is this sense that uh our thoughts and
our our perceived choices are are just the byproducts of kind of the neural
Machinery that's going on right so we you know most educated people think that the brain and the mind are somehow
intimately connected and the Brain things will happen in the brain
that cause things to change in the mind right if you're intoxicated you have alcohol permeating your your brain
that's going to change how you behave right so there's this there's this um causation that goes from you might say
bottom to top or you know um from the brain to the mind and epiphenomenalist
will say well that's the only direction that it can go any thoughts you have they're just the byproducts of these
machines and gears turning in your brain you can't have top down causation you
can't have your thoughts control your behavior that's that's what epiphenomenalism is and and it turns out
that there's a lot of literature and psychology where I think that's been
shown to be falsified where you know if you have different groups say you want like like you have
two groups of college students and you're trying to get them to exercise for one group you say well I really want
you to think out the details and plan it out in your mind and the other group you just say well just exercise okay and and
when you measure the behaviors the ones that really think about it more they're
much more likely to exercise okay so so I think there's lots of compelling data that our thoughts can also influence our
Behavior so so the the arrow of causation doesn't just go from the brain
to the mind it can also go from the mind to the brain um so the first part like
determinism this is this that's the free part uh of Free Will and the second part
is is is the will part that you you know you have top down causation of behavior and I think both of those criteria are
met and henceforth that that at least humans have have free
choice well I don't know anybody that lives their life thinking other than I I
choose what I choose yeah I don't know how you how that would look if you didn't I don't know anybody I mean even
you know I listen to like a Sam Harris or someone like that you know one of the new atheists and who does not believe in Free Will and it's
like you're not making any of your choices you don't you don't choose anything it's all determined by
yourselves it's that that's just an odd thing and I can't imagine in your field
you know a a psychologist psychoanalyst uh you know sociologist any anybody
going through and and and operating with individuals as if they don't have a
choice yeah um I mean as you mentioned like like Robert spolski just
came out with a book Robert spolski is a famous scientist who's sold lots of
books um and he came out with a book about this in the fall which in which he
put forth his case why he doesn't think Free Will is real but then you know when you listen to him he says well I'm the
biggest hypocrite because the only time I don't believe in Free Will is when I'm having these deep philosophical discussions the rest of my life I go
around assuming that I'm a free and responsible agent so I mean again I to
me it's it's fairly intuitive and most people also intuitively believe that Free Will is a real thing um it's just
these you know these worldviews are I you know I I don't no there's there's I
think I guess the the doctrine of determinism is attractive to some people
um and it's hard for them to grasp I think also there are some religious implications right if some biologists
might say well if you have free will um then that means you must have a soul so therefore I don't believe in Free Will
um there there's a there's another book out by a guy named Kevin Mitchell who's not a not a believing scientist uh but
he makes a very good case for you know a naturalistic uh argument for free will
it's a dense book I think his book is called free agents but uh it's a it's a really good book um for you know the the
arguments and the science that that suggest that actually you know we we do have free choice yeah okay all right Dr
Wilkinson appreciate your time is there anything you'd want to finish up with here just to tell the audience about
what why they need to read your book well it let me just if it's all right let me go back to the family really
quickly let's go there because um right you know we we met mentioned how the
framework that I'm trying to lay out here is that you know human nature is full of these uh competing dispositions
right selfishness and alism so forth um therefore my my framework what I'm
trying to to get across here is that if if we can put people in context where
they are in scon and family relationships they will tend to choose the better angels of their nature
because that is at the at the root that is the origin In the Flesh at least of the strongest forms of love affection
altruism trust loyalty and so forth all the kind of good qualities of human nature that we we think of so when when
you can help people to form and maintain families to and and especially to help
men be tied to their biological children they will more likely choose the better
aspects of their nature and I I think that's a function of the way that that we were created and this is one of the
reasons that I think the family is so critical and marriage is so critical right you look at sex differences um
there's there's big sex you know a lot of the sex differences psychologically what what scientists think is that they
have their root in what is called um a difference in it's a clunky term it's
called obligatory parental investment which is essentially how much you have to invest in your Offspring for them to
kind of Survive and Thrive and it's very very different for a man and a woman right a woman carries a child for nine
months and then you know in the not too too distant Past bottle feeding wasn't a thing there was you uh breastfeeding for
sometimes years and and a man you know not to be too crude here but it's possible for a man to conceive a child
and not even know it right um and so there's this there's this big imbalance
in obligatory parental investment in humans and and I think it's important to
tie men you you you need to have some cultural force that links men to their
biological children to to to kind of offset this this difference and for you
know for most of history that has been one of the purposes of marriage and most people don't think of it you know as as
the like when I got married I wasn't I wasn't like yeah I'm going to be tied to my biological children but but that is I
think you know look around at lots of different cultures that is one of the fundamental purposes of marriage and and
I think that's one of the reasons that it's it's so important and and the family you know the doctrine of the
family is so important it's you the evidence from biology from psychology sociology is that it you know we know
it's overwhelming that you know marriage and family relationship are are good for children but they're also good for
adults and and they're especially good for for men it's very motivating right
to to be in a marriage and say okay I am responsible for helping to protect and
care for my children that you know there there's a lot lot of problems with boys and men growing up today and um I think
we discount how important it is um how motivating a force you know when you
think about from an evolution perspective there's nothing that's more motivating than to be providing for your
biological Offspring and and marriage helps kind of men take on that that mindset so you know lots of maybe
different aspects of thinking about these really important principles a lot of your listeners will be familiar with
um and I think they're rooted in in biology and evolution psychology and so for I think they're rooted in the way
that that we were created that Mak sense that's great stuff and that sounds like another interview down the road because
I'm very interested in those things very very interested so anyway Dr Wilkinson thanks again the book is purpose what
evolution and human nature imply about the meaning of our existence I'll put the link in the description box and uh
Sam thanks so much really appreciate it thanks for having me it's been a pleasure [Music]
