Biology and social life: book review

Biologie et vie sociale: note de lecture

Iver Mysterud

Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and

the Nature of Society, by David Sloan Wilson1

Religion is the focus of the biologist David Sloan Wilson’s recent

book, Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of
Society. Religion has also been a topic of interest to many other evo-
lutionary scientists (e.g. Wilson, 1978; Reynolds and Tanner, 1983;
Crippen and Machalek, 1989; Lumsden, 1989; Wenegrat, 1990;
Hefner, 1993; Roele, 1993; Boyer, 1994; MacDonald, 1994; Jones
and Reynolds, 1995; Reynolds and Tanner, 1995; Steadman and
Palmer, 1995; Burkert, 1996; Irons, 1996a, 1996b; Oubré, 1997;
Grinde, 1998; MacDonald, 1998a, 1998b; Hinde, 1999; Kirkpatrick,
1999; Williams, 2001), whose opinions on this important behavior
vary significantly. At one extreme, a biologist like Richard Dawkins
is known for his stance as an atheist and ‘‘enemy’’ of several aspects
of religion.2 A deep motivation for the biologist Edward O. Wilson
was to use evolutionary theory to oppose Christian theological
explanations (Segerstråle, 2000); like Dawkins in this respect,
Wilson has been concerned about what can be termed ‘‘negative
traits’’ within religion (particularly Christianity). In contrast, the
anthropologist Lionel Tiger has noted that a natural scientist might
agree with Dawkins personally, yet have a big problem saying that
something 99 percent of a population does is ‘‘unnatural’’ (Miele,
1996). Whatever one may think of religion, it is necessary to deal
with it and try to explain it (Tiger, 1979). Consistent with this view,
Edward O. Wilson started his chapter on religion in On Human

Social Science Information & 2004 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New
Delhi), 0539-0184
DOI: 10.1177/0539018404047715 Vol 43(4), pp. 745–752; 047715

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746 Social Science Information Vol 43 – no 4

Nature as follows: ‘‘The predisposition to religious belief is the most

complex and powerful force in the human mind and in all prob-
ability an ineradicable part of human nature’’ (Wilson, 1978: 169).
An alternative to the hostile attitude of many evolutionary scien-
tists toward religion, which can be traced from Thomas Henry
Huxley to Richard Dawkins, is presented by David Sloan Wilson
in his new book. Wilson, biology professor at State University of
New York at Binghamton, is best known for his focus on group
selection or ‘‘multilevel selection theory’’ (e.g. Wilson, 1980, 1983,
2001). (Multilevel selection theory is an analytical framework for
studying conflict and cooperation within and between various
units, e.g. genes within and between organisms, organisms within
and between groups.) He has, together with philosophy professor
Elliott Sober, been concerned with conceptual analysis of ‘‘egoism’’
and ‘‘altruism’’ as well as ‘‘selfish’’ versus ‘‘unselfish’’ behavior on
both proximate and ultimate levels of evolution, and has taken an
interest in human behavior (Wilson, 1992; Sober, 1994). It is there-
fore no accident that they have teamed up over the last decade, fight-
ing convention to argue both for the plausibility of group selection
in nature and for considering that Homo sapiens may be a group-
selected species (e.g. Wilson and Sober, 1989, 1994; Sober and
Wilson, 1998). Having written extensively on egoism, altruism and
morality, therefore, it is a natural extension for Wilson to take up
the challenge of religion from a multilevel selection perspective.
In addition to Wilson and Sober’s discussion of humans as a
(culturally) group-selected species, particularly in Unto Others
(Sober and Wilson, 1998), others are coming to share this view
(e.g. MacDonald, 1994; Eibl-Eibesfeldt and Salter, 1998; Fetzer,
1998; Richerson and Boyd, 1998, 1999, 2001; Boehm, 1999; Thomp-
son, 1999; Fehr et al., 2002; Corning, 2003). To be sure, however, the
majority of scientific researchers with an interest in evolution and
human behavior still seem skeptical about the possibility that
humans are a group-selected species. The framework of multilevel
selection theory and its relevance in explaining human behavior
will be better accepted when the theory has demonstrated its practi-
cal utility in empirical science, particularly if it is able to predict new
observations and make order out of old ones (Ellis and Ketelaar,
2000). With Darwin’s Cathedral, Wilson has taken an important
step in this direction.

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Mysterud Biology and social life 747

Darwin’s Cathedral

The purpose of Darwin’s Cathedral is to treat the organismic concept

of religious groups, i.e. to consider the view that religious groups
function as adaptive units in their particular environments, as a
serious hypothesis. Organisms are a product of natural selection.
Through countless generations of variation and selection, they
acquire properties that enable them to survive and reproduce in
their environments. Wilson’s purpose is to see if human groups in
general, and religious groups in particular, qualify as ‘‘organismic’’
in this sense.
The central thesis of Darwin’s Cathedral is that: ‘‘Around the
world and across history, religions have functioned as mighty
engines of collective action for the production of benefits that all
people want’’ (p. 187). Religions are solutions to what Wilson calls
‘‘the fundamental problem of social life’’. Groups function best
when their members provide benefits for each other, but this kind
of social organization is difficult to evolve. Various forms of
social-control mechanisms seem to be needed to solve the funda-
mental problem of social life, and religion is one among several.
The book consists of an introduction, seven chapters, endnotes
and a bibliography.
To evaluate religious groups as organisms, Wilson begins with the
more general question of whether any kind of group qualifies as an
‘‘organism’’. In Chapter 1, he presents the background by reviewing
the history of thinking about groups in evolutionary biology from
Darwin to the present, with special reference to human evolution.
Chapter 2 summarizes various approaches to explaining religion
taken from the social sciences, of which Wilson’s own most resembles
functionalism as presented by Emile Durkheim. Wilson observes that
the demise of functionalism in the social sciences bears an eerie resemblance to the
demise of multilevel selection theory in biology. Taking the organismic concept of
groups seriously therefore amounts to a revival of functionalism in the social
sciences – not in its original form, which in part deserved its fate, but in a form
that can be justified theoretically and verified empirically. (p. 48)

Wilson explains that, in ‘‘modern evolutionary terms, Durkheim

interpreted religion as an adaptation that enables human groups
to function as harmonious and coordinated units’’ (p. 54). This
can be termed ‘‘the central thesis of functionalism in the social
sciences as it relates to religion’’ (p. 54).

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In Chapter 3, Wilson attempts to understand a single religious

community in relation to its environment from an evolutionary per-
spective. He presents Calvinism as a well-coordinated and successful
religous unit. John Calvin’s (1509–64) primary challenge was to
unite the fractious city of Geneva into an effective corporate unit.
He succeeded very well in developing a solution. According to
Wilson,

Calvin’s church included a code of behaviors adapted to the local environment, a

belief system that powerfully motivated the code inside the mind of the believer,
and a social organization that coordinated and enforced the code for leaders
and followers alike. (p. 111)

Wilson further explains: ‘‘Calvinism is an interlocking system with a

purpose: to unify and coordinate a population of people to achieve a
common set of goals by collective action’’ (p. 118). According to
Wilson, ‘‘the details of Calvinism are better explained as a group-
level adaptation than by any other competing hypothesis’’ (p. 119).
Calvinism caused its community of believers to behave adaptively
in the real world. On a more general level, Wilson is of the opinion
that ‘‘culturally evolved mechanisms are absolutely required for
human society to hang together above the level of face-to-face
groups’’ (p. 119).
In Chapter 4, he expands his scope to include religions across time
and around the world. First he reviews three examples that pro-
vide clear evidence for what Durkheim called ‘‘the secular utility
of religion’’ (the water temple system of Bali, Judaism, the early
Christian Church). Then he describes the initial stages of a survey
of 25 religious systems chosen at random from an encyclopedia of
world religions, using a procedure similar to the study of 25 indepen-
dent cultures in Unto Others (Sober and Wilson, 1998: ch. 5).
In Chapter 5, Wilson reviews the modern social scientific litera-
ture in the secular utility of religion. In the process, he shows how
evolutionary thinking can provide a new framework for the study
of religion.
Chapter 6 deals with Christian forgiveness as a complex adapta-
tion. This includes a highly stimulating discussion of the four
gospels. For example, he writes: ‘‘The Four Gospels differ from
each other, not because they were separated in time, but because
they were designed to serve the needs of different Christian churches
scattered across the Roman Empire’’ (p. 208). ‘‘Since the main pur-
pose of each Gospel was to guide the behavior of a particular

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Mysterud Biology and social life 749

church, each became locally adapted to a particular social environ-

ment’’ (p. 213).
In Chapter 7, the final chapter, Wilson gathers some of the most
important themes and expands his scope from the ‘‘tree’’ of religion
to the ‘‘forest’’ of society in general. He ends the book with some
general thoughts about science itself as one of many unifying
human social organizations.

Evaluation

Darwin’s Cathedral is a well-written, honest and thought-provoking

book by one of the most clear-thinking of contemporary evolution-
ary biologists interested in human behavior. I applaud his stance
that: ‘‘Evolutionary biologists and human social scientists should
work together to understand the evolutionary processes that
create latent functions in our species’’ (p. 79). The book is thus writ-
ten as an initial stage of a long process in which evolutionary biolo-
gists and human social scientists join forces to better understand a
truly challenging and important part of human behavior.
Wilson is the first to admit that the book consists of preliminary
interpretations, and he does not believe that group selection can
explain all aspects of religion. He explicitly states: ‘‘I think that
group selection can explain much about religion, but by no means
all’’ (p. 45). He admits that all evolutionary theories of religion,
both adaptive and nonadaptive, have some merit (p. 45). The
challenge is to discover and understand their relative importance.
I find this to be a sensible attitude. Others have challenged Wilson
for not having more thoroughly discussed other evolutionary
theories of religion in Darwin’s Cathedral (Sosis, 2003). I hope
Wilson will meet this challenge in future work.
Fortunately, Darwin’s Cathedral has been given serious attention
by a number of reviewers (e.g. Diamond, 2002; Ruse, 2002; Tiger,
2002; Benzon, 2003; Falk, 2003; MacDonald, 2003; Orr, 2003;
Sosis, 2003), although, as expected, some have been critical or skep-
tical (e.g. Ruse, 2002; Orr, 2003). In my opinion, his multilevel selec-
tion approach seems fruitful (1) to synthesize theories and data from
a number of approaches and disciplines, and (2) to test different
hypotheses or show that they are not competing at all but should
best be placed on different (complementary) levels (proximate and
ultimate).

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750 Social Science Information Vol 43 – no 4

In my opinion, Darwin’s Cathedral is written in the best tradition

of Charles Darwin, and Wilson has seriously met Tiger’s challenge.
In future years, I wish more scientists would follow in his footsteps.
Today, religion as a behavioral phenomenon in humans is inter-
nationally far too important to be ignored by the majority of the
scientific community.
Author’s address: Department of Biology, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1066
Blindern, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway. [email: mysterud@bio.uio.no]

Notes
1. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002, 268 pp., ISBN 0-226-90134-3.
2. For instance, the science writer Robert Wright describes Dawkins as a man
‘‘whose hostility toward religion approaches religious intensity’’ (Wright, 2000: 89).

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