This View of Life
Episodes
Evolving Cooperative Systems: The Case of Housing and Homelessness
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Homelessness is a wicked problem in its own right and is connected to the larger problem of affordable housing, which affects everyone but the wealthy...
Evolving Complex Systems in Seattle and Beyond, with Marina Alberti
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How can cities deliver on their ambitious agendas? In conversation with David Sloan Wilson, Marina Alberti is a true pioneer of adopting a new perspec...
Evolution's Rainbow, Revisited: Sex, Gender, and Evolution
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nature doesn't draw straight lines, and neither should we. In this special conversation, evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden and geneticist Nathan...
The Evolution of Place: How Environments Shape Us
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What if your neighborhood is quietly shaping your stress levels, immune system, and trust in others? In this episode, David Sloan Wilson talks with Da...
Evolving Prosocial AI: A conversation with Peter Fenton and David Sloan Wilson
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence is evolving faster than most of us can think about it—but few of its creators understand evolution itself. Venture capitalis...
Forever Green: Building a cooperative innovation platform for diversification in Midwest agriculture with Nick Jordan & Whitney Clark
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Sloan Wilson speaks with Professor Nick Jordan and Whitney Clark, Executive Director of Friends of the Mississippi River, about their work on th...
The Science of Imagined Worlds: Evolution and Ecology for World Builders - A conversation between Carlo Maley, Vaughn Aktipis-Maley & David Sloan Wilson
22 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Join David Sloan Wilson in conversation with Carlo Maley and Vaughn Aktipis-Maley as they explore how evolutionary science can inspire deeper, more in...
Shaping AI for Good: Prosocial Hybrid Intelligence for a Thriving Future - A conversation between Cornelia Walther and David Sloan Wilson
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI is no longer a distant future - it's shaping our lives right now. But what if we could design it not just to be smart, but to be good? In this pow...
Democracy's Deep Roots: From Hunter-Gatherers to Modern Society -- A conversation between Vivek Venkataraman and David Sloan Wilson
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What if the roots of democracy run far deeper than ancient Greece or Enlightenment Europe, but back to our evolutionary origins as humans? In this tho...
Decolonizing Ecology: Rethinking Nature in a Broken World
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A conversation between Madhusudan Katti and Amitangshu Acharya Join us for a thought-provoking virtual dialogue exploring how colonial worldviews have...
Addressing the Wicked Problem of Housing Insecurity in Binghamton New York with Rebecca Rathmell
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Originally published on September 9, 2024
Hunter-Gatherer Societies, Human Origins, and Modern Democracies with Vivek Venkataraman (Part 2)
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hunter-gatherer societies are fascinating in their own right and--with appropriate caution--a major source of insight about our ancestral past, stretc...
Hunter-Gatherer Societies, Human Origins, and Modern Democracies with Vivek Venkataraman (Part 1)
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Originally published on January 8, 2025. Hunter-gatherer societies are fascinating in their own right and--with appropriate caution--a major source of...
Barry-Wehmiller's Bold Experiment in Prosocial Cultural Evolution
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Who is Barry-Wehmiller (BW)? Not a person, but a manufacturing corporation and star attraction of the Conscious Capitalism movement. If you are fam...
Evolving Prosocial Cities, with Jonathan Rose
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Few people know more about cities than Jonathan Rose, author of The Well-Tempered City: What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature ...
A Theory of Everyone as a New Paradigm with Michael Muthukrishna and David Sloan Wilson
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Muthukrishna's new book A Theory of Everyone is the latest in a lineage of authors that include Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd (Culture and...
Conscious Capitalism Viewed Through The Lens of a New Paradigm with Bob Chapman & Raj Sisodia
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Conscious capitalism is well known as a business movement that goes against almost everything that is taught in business school. However, the same mov...
Assessing the Complexity/Evolution Paradigm for Economics with Eric Beinhocker
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The first book-length articulation of an economic paradigm based on complex systems science and evolutionary science was Eric Beinhocker's The Origin...
Updating Darwin and Tocqueville on Self Interest, Rightly Understood, with Robert Putnam
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1831, two youths embarked upon voyages that would change the way that we view the world today. The first was Charles Darwin and the second was Alex...
Wicked Problems and How To Solve Them with Guru Madhavan
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Guru Madhavan is Norman R. Augustine Senior Scholar, Senior Director of Programs, and Director of the Forum on Complex Unifiable Systems (FOCUS) at t...
Depolarizing Economic Theory and Practice with Paul Dragos Aligica
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In my writing on generalized Darwinism as a new paradigm for economics and public policy, I stress that it doesn't fall into any current ideological c...
Announcing a New Paradigm for Economics and Beyond with Dennis Snower and David Sloan Wilson
26 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Is it time to fundamentally rethink economics - its theoretical foundations, activities and processes; its purpose and goals? How should we reimagine ...
Anti-Trust From a Multilevel Evolutionary Perspective with Denise Hearn
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Increasingly, policymakers, investors, and advocates recognize that the neoliberal theory of economic organization – laissez faire – is a failed e...
What Happened to Selfish Genes? with J. Arvid Agren
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
J. Arvid Agren's book The Gene's Eye View of Evolution (Oxford University Press, 2021), is a highly praised scholarly account of the concept of sel...
No Best Way, with Stephen Colarelli and Max Beilby
16 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Max Beilby and Steve Colarelli discuss the application of evolutionary psychology to Human Resource Management. They cover Steve's academic career, an...
Atlas Hugged and Our Moment of Choice, with Kurt Johnson
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kurt Johnson wears many hats--a distinguished evolutionary biologist, a leader of the Interspiritual Movement, an authority on the scientific care...
Atlas Hugged and the Nature of Fiction, with Brian Boyd
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Boyd is a renowned evolutionary literary scholar (The Origin of Stories), biographer of the novelist Vladimir Nabokov (1,2,3), and 2020 reci...
Atlas Hugged and Catalyzing Positive Change in the Real World, with David Korten
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
David Korten is the renowned futurist, author of When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning among many other books, founder of YES!...
Human Nature at Work, with Andrew O'Keeffe
12 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
TVOL guest host Max Beilby talks with Andrew O'Keeffe about his work helping leaders make better sense of the human dimension of their role, so that t...
The Study of Nature in Early America: A Conversation with Lee Dugatkin
09 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What was the study of nature like before Darwin? It was an integral part of the Enlightenment and was avidly pursued by early Americans such as Thomas...
Managing the Human Animal, with Nigel Nicholson and Max Beilby
18 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Max Beilby and Nigel Nicholson discuss the application of evolutionary psychology to the world of business and management. They cover Nigel Nicholson'...
Cultural Evolution with Alex Mesoudi
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the last 30 years, evolutionary theory has undergone explosive growth in studying humans as a fundamentally cultural species. David talks with Alex...
[BONUS] Robert Kurzban On the Modular Mind
07 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this bonus archive episode, David talks with evolutionary psychologist Robert Kurzban about his book, "Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolutio...
A Tale of Two Evolutionary Processes, with Rita Colwell
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rita Colwell pioneered the study of microbial ecology and genetics and served as Director of the National Science Foundation during 1998-2004. Her new...
Positive Deviance as the Third Way: A Conversation with David K. Hurst
20 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
During our discussion group exploring TVOL's Third Way Series, What is Positive Deviance? There's a small chance that you know all about it and a lar...
The Third Way of Entrepreneurship with Victor Hwang
14 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since the Third Way series is centered on entrepreneurship, even though it also applies to all forms of positive social change, it is only fitting for...
Peter J. Richerson: Morality from an Evolutionary Perspective
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
David discusses morality from an evolutionary perspective with analytic philosopher Peter J. Richerson. Peter is best known for his seminal work on cu...
[BONUS EPISODE] Geoffrey Hodgson on Evolutionary Thinking and Its Policy Implications for Modern Capitalism
11 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This interview was recorded almost 10 years ago at a workshop entitled, "Evolutionary Thinking and Its Policy Implications for Modern Capitalism". We ...
Morality from an Evolutionary Perspective with Simon Blackburn
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
David discusses morality from an evolutionary perspective with analytic philosopher Simon Blackburn. Along the way they cover whether functionality di...
The Nordic Third Way
30 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Again and again—including some of the previous episodes—the Nordic countries are identified as exemplars of good governance and the Third Way. In ...
Ecosystems are Probably Not What You Think: A Conversation with Tom Whitham
17 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What are ecosystems? Do they achieve some kind of balance in their natural state? Do they evolve in a way that can't be explained by the evolution of ...
Development and the Third Way with Scott Peters
09 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As part of TVOL's "Third Way" series of conversations, I explore the concept of "Development" as a type of cultural change effort with Scott Peters, P...
The Third Way in the Internet Age with Tim O'Reilly
02 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Modern life has been transformed by electronic communication, starting with the telegraph and now in full force with the Internet Age. There are many ...
Smart Cities and the Third Way with Dan O'Brien
28 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Urban planning represents one kind of positive change effort that has suffered from excessive reliance on laissez-faire in some instances and centrali...
Science as a Moral System with Robert T. Pennock
23 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Science is often imagined as limited to the "facts" and deliberately set apart from "values". But the pursuit of objective reality requires its own se...
Libertarianism and the Third Way with Peter Boettke
18 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The economic and political school of thought known as Libertarianism is most closely associated with laissez faire as a public policy prescription. Ge...
Economics, Public Policy, and the Third Way with David Colander
11 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The economics profession includes many schools of thought–some that emphasize laissez faire, others that emphasize centralized planning, with many a...
Socialism, Capitalism, and the Third Way of National Governance with Geoffrey Hodgson
04 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Socialism and Capitalism will be among the hot words thrown around during the 2020 US presidential elections. Geoffrey Hodgson, a great scholar of eco...
Pragmatism and the Third Way with Trygve Throntveit
27 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 19th century, a tiny group of intellectuals who called themselves Pragmatists were to have an outsized influence on the nation and th...
Evolving the Future of Corporations: A Conversation with Toby Shannan
25 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Meet Toby Shannan--the son of hippy parents growing up in rural Canada, high school jock, college dropout, construction worker--and Chief Support Offi...
Tightening and Loosening Up for the Coronavirus Pandemic with Michele Gelfand
05 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
TVOL's first podcast with Michele Gelfand explored an axis of cultural variation from "tight" (strong norms, strongly enforced) to "loose" (tolerant o...
Finding Purpose in Evolution Education
27 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Evolution education is often considered solely the domain of the biology classroom, with evolutionary explanations centered largely on genetic change ...
Evolutionary Mismatch in the Workplace with Mark van Vugt and Max Beilby
29 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Max Beilby and Mark van Vugt discuss the science of evolutionary mismatch how it can help us understand human behavior in modern novel environments su...
PsychTable.org: A Digital Classification Table of Human Evolved Psychological Adaptations. A conversation with Niruban Balachandran and Daniel Glass
06 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1992, the evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby predicted, "Just as one can now flip open Gray's Anatomy to any page and find an ...
Evolution Doesn't Make Everything Nice: A conversation about primate societies with Joan Silk.
26 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The idea that nature, left to itself, reaches some sort of harmonious balance is still widespread in the lay public and some public policy circles. "T...
Dugnad as part of Norway's Culture of Cooperation: A conversation with Carsta Simon and Hilde Mobekk
29 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What is Dugnad? It is a uniquely Norwegian word that identifies an important aspect of its culture of cooperation. David Sloan Wilson talks with Carst...
Peter Gray on Education as a Biological Phenomenon, Learning from Hunter-Gatherers, and Letting Children Lead
21 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Gray, the first psychologist to write an introductory psychology textbook from an evolutionary perspective, experienced a family crisis when his...
Elliott Sober on the Origins of Multilevel Selection
21 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One of the high points of David's professional life has been to work with Elliott Sober, Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Prof...
Lynette Shaw on Social Constructionism and Finding Academic Common Ground
21 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Phrases such as "social constructivism" and "relativism" signal the importance of symbolic meaning systems in human life. Taken to extremes, they have...
Michele Gelfand on Tight and Loose Cultures
20 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Most people think of cultural differences in terms of race, class, nationality, or religion. Michele Gelfand introduces the concept of 'tight" and "lo...