Evolving the FutureToward a Science of Intentional Change

ACBS World Conference IXParma, Italy July 14, 2011

David Sloan WilsonPresident, Evolution InstituteSUNY Distinguished Professor

Binghamton University

Published by Little, Brown in August 2011

Change

• We crave it.• We fear it.• We’re not very good at managing it.

Can There Be A Science of Change?

• Yes.• It must be centered in evolutionary theory.• This means that achieving a science of change will

be both difficult and easy.

Why It Will Be Difficult

• Darwin’s theory, which has unified the study of life, has been avoided for the study of humans for the last half century.

• This avoidance is based on complex histories in which evolutionary approaches of the time were rejected for good reasons (e.g., Social Darwinism plus much more).

• An ACT-like process is required for a science of human change to become centered in evolutionary theory.

Why It Will Be Easy

• Evolutionary Science offers a powerful toolkit for the study of all traits in all species.

• The toolkit is easily learned.• The tools can be applied right away.• Some of the most recalcitrant problems can not only

be solved, but easily solved, when they are approached in the right way.

• ACT provides outstanding examples of this difficult-made-easy phenomenon.

Why I Know

• Trained in evolutionary biology• Involved in the academic study of human

biocultural evolution throughout my career.• Became involved the applied study of human

biocultural evolution app. 5 years ago.• The Evolution Institute: The world’s first

evolutionary think tank.• The Binghamton Neighborhood Project:

Community-based research from an evolutionary perspective.

Nature, 9 June 2011

A little help from my friends

Tony Biglan Dennis Embry Steve Hayes

Some Tools from the Evolutionary Toolkit

• Multilevel selection and major evolutionary transitions.

• Evolutionary mismatch.• Adaptations to harsh environments.• Learning and symbolic thought• Using the tools to solve real-world problems• What a society such as ACBS can do

Multilevel SelectionA Simple Subject with a Complex History

Individual level adaptations are locally advantageous.

• Sharp teeth• Thick fur• Cryptic coloration

Multilevel SelectionA Simple Subject with a Complex History

Social adaptations tend to be locally disadvantageous.

• Altruism• Public good provision• Most behaviors that are “for

the good of the group”

The Fundamental Problem

How can “for the good of the group” traits evolve when they are locally disadvantageous?

The (Partial) Solution

• Because “for the good or the group” traits are advantageous at a larger scale.

• Groups whose members behave “for the good of the group” will survive and reproduce better than groups whose members are more self-serving.

• The solution is only partial because positive between-group selection must be strong enough to prevail against negative within-group selection.

Sociobiology, standing on one foot

• Selfishness beats altruism within single groups. • Altruistic groups beat single groups.• Everything else is commentary.

New Scientist, August 2011

Major Evolutionary Transitions

1) The balance between levels of selection is not static but can itself evolve.

2) When between-group selection becomes sufficiently strong, the group becomes so cooperative that it becomes a new higher-level organism in its own right.

3) The fact that evolution takes place, not only by mutational change, but also by groups turning into organisms, is one of the most profound developments in evolutionary thought.

Major Evolutionary Transitions

• The origin of life• The first cells• Nucleated cells• Multicellular organisms• Social insect colonies

Major Evolutionary Transitions

• The origin of life• The first cells• Nucleated cells• Multicellular organisms• Social insect colonies

• Human biocultural evolution

This comparison needs to be taken very seriously

The Ancestral Human Social Environment• Small groups • Important shared objectives• Low-cost social control

Modern Relevance

• Elinor Ostrom• 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics• Showed that groups are capable of

managing their own affairs, but only if certain conditions are met.

• These conditions are highly consilient with evolutionary science and provide a practical how-to guide for most groups attempting to achieve common goals.

How To Make Groups Work

1) Strong group identity and purpose

2) Proportional equivalence of costs and benefits

3) Consensus decision making4) Monitoring5) Graduated sanctions6) Fast, fair conflict resolution7) Local autonomy8) Polycentric governance

among groups

Multilevel Selection and the Invisible Hand• Invisible hand metaphor states that the pursuit of

self-interest robustly leads to a well-functioning society.

• MLS states that adaptation at any given level requires a process of selection at that level and tends to be undermined by selection at lower levels.

• Taking MLS alters the discourse about what’s required for society to function at a large scale (consult Tony Biglan for more)

Evolutionary Mismatch

• All evolutionary processes can only adapt organisms to their past environments.

• Can go tragically wrong when the environment changes.

• Only solution is to engineer the environment so that this doesn’t happen or to adapt to the new environment.

• This has profound implications for understanding and improving the modern human condition.

Evolutionary Mismatch

• Diet• Exercise• Immune system dysfunction• Our built environment• Our social environment• Mechanisms of social learning and

cultural transmission

Mechanisms of social learning and cultural transmission

• The concept of reinforcers from learning theory can be elaborated to include copying behaviors from others.

• Examples: Conformance bias, Prestige bias.• Our instincts for cultural transmission evolved to

facilitate the spread of the most adaptive behaviors in the ancestral social environment, but can seriously malfunction in modern environments, leading to the phenomenon of practices that work but don’t spread.

The dysfunctional consequences of harsh environments

• Many problems result from harsh environmental circumstances.

• It’s easy to conclude that human development and psychological functioning are optimal in benign environment and become compromised in harsh environments, so that the problems are similar to a car that has broken down.

• Evolutionary science offers another possibility…

The dysfunctional consequences of harsh environments

• Like all species, humans have experienced a range of environmental conditions, from benign to harsh, throughout their evolutionary history.

• When the environment becomes harsh, people don’t fall apart—they exhibit adaptations to harsh environments. They are like a car that is functioning well for its given purpose.

• Adaptations to harsh environments are oriented toward immediate survival and reproduction, often at the expense of societal and long-term individual welfare.

• The need to address these problems is just as important as before, but recognizing their adaptive nature leads to new solutions.

The Adaptive Calibration Model of Stress Responsivity

• Highly sophisticated set of mechanisms operating throughout development, including before birth.

• The key to healthy development and psychological functioning is to provide a safe, secure, and nurturing environment.

• The importance of genetic variation in sensitivity to the environment.

Harsh Benign

Low

HighSensitive toEnvironment

Insensitive toEnvironment

ENVIRONMENT

FUN

CTI

ON

ING

Learning and symbolic thought

• B.F. Skinner, evolutionary psychologist.

• Clearly regarded learning as both a product and process of evolution.

• His tradition, which is now represented by ACBS, deserves to be central to the evolutionary perspective.

Learning and symbolic thought as different inheritance systems

• Both count as inheritance systems that can result in the transmission of traits across generations.

• The learning inheritance system exists in many species.

• Symbolic thought more uniquely human.

Where contextual psychology comes in• RFT is consilient with an emerging paradigm of

human symbolic thought as an inheritance system with the same kind of combinatorial possibilities as genetic evolution and the immune system.

--Nearly an infinite number of genotypes, antibodies, and “symbotypes”

• Each is heritable and has phenotypic consequences that are subject to selection.

• RFT provides mechanistic detail and real-world applications that are far ahead of the evolutionists.

The Power of Narrative• Long appreciated by social constructivists who

regarded their position as opposed to “genetic determinism.”

• Now firmly a part of the evolutionary story. • Accounts for some of the “difficult-made-easy”

success stories of ACT, which helps people create new “symbotypes” for themselves, which can sometimes be done in as little as a single hour.

• Major ACBS theorists such as Hayes, Biglan, and Embry are now integrating ACT and RFT with modern evolutionary science.

How to Make the Difficult Easy

• Suppose you wanted to change the color of this lizard species .

• How easy would it be if you didn’t change the background environment?

• How easy would it be if you did change the background environment?

How to Make the Difficult Easy

• Changing the lives of at-risk adolescents is one of the most difficult problems of modern life.

• High school programs for at-risk youth succeed only through heroic efforts, such as extended days, extended years, and so on.

• Can this difficult problem be made easy by applying evolutionary insights?

Regents Academy• Program for at-risk 9th and 10th graders in

Binghamton, NY. • Explicitly tries to apply the following evolutionary

principles: 1) The optimal human social environment, including

the Ostrom design features. 2) A safe, secure, and nurturing environment

conducive to “broaden and build” human development.

3) Principles of “selection by consequences” for both behavior management and academic learning.

The distinction between design features and their implementation

IMPLEMENTATIONS• Self-contained program with

own principle, teaching staff, and location (1,6,7).

• T-shirts, eating together, a successful image, other group-building exercises (1).

• Involving students in decision making and the formation and enforcement of norms as much as possible (3-6).

DESIGN FEATURES1) Strong group identity and

purpose2) Proportional equivalence of

costs and benefits3) Consensus decision making4) Monitoring5) Graduated sanctions6) Fast, fair conflict resolution7) Local autonomy8) Polycentric governance among

groups

The one-to-many relationship between design features and their implementations

• In general, there are many ways to implement any particular design feature.

• The best way is highly contingent on local circumstances, cannot be provided by a cookie-cutter approach.

• It is therefore important to distinguish between design features, which are relatively invariant, and implementations, which are highly variable.

• E.g., “You must have monitoring but how you accomplish it is up to you.”

Randomized Control Trial

• Students who entered the program must have failed at least three of their basic classes during the previous year.

• Randomly divided into Regents Academy (RA) and comparison group that experienced the normal high school routine.

• Outcome variables: Quarterly gradesState-mandated examsDevelopmental assets (non-academic)

Class grades

State Mandated Exams

Too Good to be True?

• Seems like a miracle, compared to previous efforts.

• Previous efforts were like trying to change the color of the lizard species without changing the environmental background.

• Group-level equivalent of the “too good to be true” results achieved at the individual level with ACT.

What can a society such as ACBS do to accelerate the science of intentional change?

2007: Tony Biglan reads Darwin’s Cathedral by chance. Get’s excited. Invites me to SPR meeting. I learn about his domain. I get excited.

2009: Tony, Dennis, Steve and I start interacting in a number of contexts. We’re all excited.

2011: Here we are at the ACBS annual meeting. Are you excited?

What can a society such as ACBS do to accelerate the science of intentional change?

2007: Tony Biglan reads Darwin’s Cathedral by chance. Get’s excited. Invites me to SPR meeting. I learn about his domain. I get excited.

2009: Tony, Dennis, Steve and myself start interacting in a number of contexts. We’re all excited.

2011: Here we are at the ACBS annual meeting. Are you excited?

THIS ISN’T FAST ENOUGH!

The Need to Operate in Catalytic Mode

• Catalysis: A substance, usually used in small amounts relative to the reactants, that modifies and increases the rate of a reaction without being consumed in the process.

Cultural processes can be catalyzed, no less than chemical processes

The role of programs and societies for operating in catalytic mode

• EvoS (higher education)• The Evolution Institute

(public policy)• The Binghamton

Neighborhood Project (community-based research)

The role of programs and societies for operating in catalytic mode

• I invite a collaboration with ACBS to make a science of intentional change a reality sooner rather than later.

Evolving the FutureToward a Science of Intentional Change

ACBS World Conference IXParma, Italy July 14, 2011

David Sloan WilsonPresident, Evolution InstituteSUNY Distinguished Professor

Binghamton University

Published by Little, Brown in August 2011