This webinar took place on Wednesday September 15 2021 at 9 a.m. Pacific Time.
Watch a recording of the program here
The September Global Reads is unusual, insofar as it brings together two books, This View of Life and Atlas Hugged, by the same author, David Sloan Wilson.
It is also different since Wilson is offering Atlas Hugged free as an e-book or for the cost of printing as a paperback.
Both books—one nonfiction and the other a novel—show how the modern study of evolution, far from justifying the “Greed is Good” ideology of modern times, can lead to a compassionate ethics for the whole world.
In addition to authoring these two books, David’s nonprofit organization Prosocial World is starting to work with the Charter for Compassion to put the ideas of the books into action.
About the Books
This View of Life by David Sloan Wilson
It is widely understood that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution completely revolutionized the study of biology. Yet, according to David Sloan Wilson, the Darwinian revolution won’t be truly complete until it is applied more broadly—to everything associated with the words “human,” “culture,” and “policy.”
In a series of engaging and insightful examples—from the breeding of hens to the timing of cataract surgeries to the organization of an automobile plant—Wilson shows how an evolutionary worldview provides a practical tool kit for understanding not only genetic evolution but also the fast-paced changes that are having an impact on our world and ourselves. What emerges is an incredibly empowering argument: If we can become wise managers of evolutionary processes, we can solve the problems of our age at all scales—from the efficacy of our groups to our well-being as individuals to our stewardship of the planet Earth.
Atlas Hugged by David Sloan Wilson
Call me anything but John Galt. That is my name, but it is also the name of my father and grandfather. I am not like them and the world they created is not the one I desire. The III after my name does not sufficiently set me apart.
With these words, famed scientist and nonfiction writer David Sloan Wilson launches a devastating critique of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism and its impact on the world. Just as Rand advanced her ideas through fiction in addition to nonfiction, including her iconic novel Atlas Shrugged, Wilson pursues his quarry into the fictional realm with the story of John Galt III, the grandson of the main protagonist of Rand’s novel, and his quest to defeat the Evil Empire constructed by his father, grandfather, and grandmother—Ayn Rant.
About the Author
David Sloan Wilson is a renown evolutionary scientist and SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Binghamton University in New York. He is also president of the nonprofit Prosocial World, whose mission is “to consciously evolve a world that works for all”.
Wilson’s father was the novelist Sloan Wilson, who helped to define the 1950’s with his novels The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit and The Summer Place. Wilson became a scientist but retained a love of writing and his nonfiction books Evolution for Everyone, The Neighborhood Project, and This View of Life are acclaimed for their storytelling quality. With Atlas Hugged, Wilson has returned to his father’s novelistic craft.
About the Host
Michael Karlin, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Life University in the Positive Human Development and Social Change Department and the Associate Director of the Life University Center for Compassion, Integrity and Secular Ethics. He is the co-author of Compassionate Integrity Training: A Secular Ethics Approach to Cultivating Personal, Social and Environmental Flourishing. Karlin received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Jewish Studies from Emory University in 2014. His dissertation, “‘To Create a Dwelling Place for God’: Life Coaching and the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Movement in Contemporary America,” is an ethnographic study of two Jewish life coaching programs that blend psychology, religion and contemplative practice in order to provide resources with which individuals can construct moral selves and heal psychological wounds.
Michael Karlin was also a Fellow of the Tam Institute of Jewish Studies, Mind and Life Institute and the Wexner Heritage Institute. Prior to graduate school Karlin was the founder and President of the Mythic Imagination Institute, a non-profit institution dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of myth and ritual and how it functions in daily life. Additionally, he served as the Chairman of the Executive Board of the Alliance for a New Humanity, an international non-profit organization founded by two Nobel Peace Prize winners and Deepak Chopra that attempted to address pressing international issues by bridging the spheres of politics, economics, and religion.
Karlin is also an active real estate investor and was co-founder of Security First Network Bank, the world's first Internet bank, and S1 Corporation, Inc. (NASDAQ: SONE), the world's leading provider of financial portal solutions. He was president of Security First Network Bank at its inception, and was responsible for setting up the Internet operations, defining the original product offering, and receiving all regulatory approvals. Prior to SFNB, Karlin co-founded VST Financial Services, an SBA lending subsidiary of Cardinal Bancshares, Inc. of Lexington, Kentucky.
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