Sam Wilkinson: Author of Purpose: What Evolution and Human Nature Imply About the Meaning of Our Existence
Mar 14, 2024Season 1Episode 12
We're honored to have Dr. Sam Wilkinson stop by the Book Drop Mic to talk about his powerhouse debut: What Evolution and Human Nature Imply About the Meaning of Our Existence. Tune in and learn why this is one of the spring's buzziest books. Can science, faith, religion and human nature all dance well together?
About the book: In Purpose, Yale Professor Samuel Wilkinson tells the story of how recent discoveries from a variety of scientific disciplines—ranging from evolutionary biology to cognitive psychology—suggest there is an overall purpose for human existence. At the same time, Purpose summarizes the latest science from these fields in an attempt to answer some of the deep questions about human nature: Are we ultimately selfish or altruistic? Do we have free will? What is at the root of human happiness? How can a society simultaneously maximize individual happiness and communal well-being? Purpose makes the case that our innate desire to seek for meaning, purpose, and ultimately God, is not at odds with science and evolution.
This podcast is brought to you by InkVeins, your source for book publicity, promo, press releases and more. Text 540-212-4095 for more information.
We're honored to have Dr. Sam Wilkinson stop by the Book Drop Mic to talk about his powerhouse debut: What Evolution and Human Nature Imply About the Meaning of Our Existence. Tune in and learn why this is one of the spring's buzziest books. Can science, faith, religion and human nature all dance well together?
About the book: In Purpose, Yale Professor Samuel Wilkinson tells the story of how recent discoveries from a variety of scientific disciplines—ranging from evolutionary biology to cognitive psychology—suggest there is an overall purpose for human existence. At the same time, Purpose summarizes the latest science from these fields in an attempt to answer some of the deep questions about human nature: Are we ultimately selfish or altruistic? Do we have free will? What is at the root of human happiness? How can a society simultaneously maximize individual happiness and communal well-being? Purpose makes the case that our innate desire to seek for meaning, purpose, and ultimately God, is not at odds with science and evolution.
This podcast is brought to you by InkVeins, your source for book publicity, promo, press releases and more. Text 540-212-4095 for more information.
Speaker 1:
Hello, hello world. Hey there, welcome to the Book Drop Mic brought to you by InkVeins, your source for book publicity, promo and press releases. This is Jason. How are you? Quick reminder that Skaar Dakota is now available for pre-order on Amazon and my good friend Kirby Heyborn just delivered to me the audio and his performance is just ridiculous. It is so good You're going to love it. Check it out on Amazon. We'll have the links, of course, to all those good things.
Speaker 1:
All right, I'm really curious about today's guest. I've known this particular interview was coming for quite some time. I suspect this will be one of our more listened to episodes of the show. I joke a lot. If you've ever been to an event with me assigning a devotional, whatever, you know that I like to joke that I am never the smartest person in the room, but there are only two people in the room. I'm still not the smartest person in the room ever. I'm not sure I'm the smartest person in the room if I'm alone, to be quite honest. But I don't think today's guest can say that because I suspect there are not many rooms where he is not the brightest. I mean that as a compliment. His name is Sam Wilkinson and he is on the show today. How are you, sam?
Speaker 2:
Good, I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:
Okay To call you Sam. Do you like Samuel? Do you like Dr Wilkinson? What?
Speaker 2:
do you like? Sam is just perfect.
Speaker 1:
Dr Sam, anyone call you Dr Sam, I like that Not too often. No, they should. They should. All right, sam. Your new book, a Purpose what Evolution and Human Nature Imply About the Meaning of Our Existence, is one of the most interesting nonfiction titles I have seen in a long, long time. Folks, the reviews for this book are off the charts. I'm going to share one that I particularly loved because I love this other author. Here's what he said an essential book by every measure, beautifully written, superbly researched and life changing. You will never think of your life or the earth, or the purpose of each in the same way again. That's Greg McEwen, new York Times bestselling author of Effortless Essentialism. Two books that I absolutely love, two of my actually favorite, maybe nonfiction titles of all time. Do you know, greg, by the way?
Speaker 2:
Well, he was kind enough to endorse my book. I went on his podcast a couple months ago. Very kind and generous of him to provide that a few surprise, as he did.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, he's terrific. Those two books are just fabulous. I have recommended those books often. All right, before we dive into your title, tell us a little bit about you, your background and why this book right now.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'd be happy to. I am an academic. I'm an associate professor at the Yale School of Medicine, lived up here in Connecticut and been here for 12 years, coming up on 12 years with my family. I've wanted to write this book for some time. It's been almost 15 years since I made a fairly you know it was almost a singular type decision. I'm gonna write this book about this particular topic and it stemmed really from kind of a crisis of meaning that I had as a first year medical student. I was fortunate to attend medical school at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland, and that first year there there were a lot of questions swirling through my head. Some of this had to do with the what I would say is perceived conflict between science and the sense that I have, that most of us have, that life has value and meaning and purpose. And after a period of intense reflection and study, I came to a conclusion that I thought was very satisfying personally and I decided to eventually write a book.
Speaker 1:
When you say, eventually, write a book. How long has it been since you said how about page one? Let's go.
Speaker 2:
Well, I tried to write a little bit right then and there I was again. I was a first year medical student. This was again, it's about 15 years, it was 2009. And at some point I had to put it on the shelf, just because medical school is intense. Within within about a half a year or so, we had our first children, who were twins twins in the midst of medical school and all these other things. So I put it on the shelf for a little over a decade and I picked it back up again as I had a little bit more flexibility in my time and effort as a, as a, as a faculty, and picked it up really right before COVID. And so there was a maybe about two or so years, a little more than two years during COVID, where I really was intensive in my effort and picking this back up and and was able to, to you know, conclude, conclude this project and and you know what's coming to to launch here in the next couple of weeks and and I'm I'm excited about it.
Speaker 1:
So I love, I love to put people on the spot with their elevator pitch, the you, you sort of tease this a few minutes ago, but this is a this is a big topic, it's a big it's. It's a big book, thematically right. But on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or in Target when you're walking or browsing or scrolling past books, you've got a few seconds to catch somebody. What do you tell somebody in that quote unquote elevator pitch in 30 seconds or less about the book and why they need it?
Speaker 2:
Well, for me, it is trying to bring together these two, in some cases very different, worldviews through which we see existence. When we turn to science questions like what is the purpose of life? Where do I find meaning? A lot of times, science doesn't have satisfactory explanations, and so a lot of us turn to religion or philosophy to answer these questions, and my goal here is to bring those together and show how, not only are they not in conflict, but they are mutually reinforcing.
Speaker 1:
So you and I were talking before we began taking here today. We both served in some similar leadership positions in our faith, which has put us in a lot of counseling situations one-on-one with church members through the years. In those discussions, how often obviously without violating anyone's confidentiality how often did someone sit down and erase some of these questions with you about this balance between science and faith and did that impact your writing?
Speaker 2:
It tends to happen. In my experience it tends to happen more among young people, particularly those who are in the trenches of a university education. That seems to be when this comes to the forefront. If it does Not. Everyone struggles with this. Some people just they don't really see that conflict. But among surveys of, say, young people who have grown up in a religious environment, this is the number one or two thing as to why they are prone to drift away from a religious upbringing. There's kind of a tie between the perceived conflict of science and faith, as well as a perception that religious leaders or people are acting in ways that are hypocritical, which that's hard to get away from. Human nature is full of contradiction. It's a prominent theme among young people, especially those immersed in a university setting.
Speaker 1:
Are you hoping that people will? I mean, there must be some part of you that hopes someone picks up the book whose faith is perhaps a little thin right now and they read through it and they say you know what, maybe it's worth another shot.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I think that is exactly what I would hope.
Speaker 2:
I don't want to be overly optimistic and say, well, I'm going to convert the world with this book.
Speaker 2:
But there's a phrase that I really like from a man named Austin Fair, who was a contemporary and colleague of CS Lewis, who said essentially that argument can't create faith, but the lack of argument can destroy faith. And so you know, most people's faith is it's not grounded in science. A lot of it's grounded in personal, very intimate experiences that people have had. But if they have this onslaught of logical argument that tears that down and they don't have any sort of defense for it, I think that can be a recipe for losing your faith. So I wouldn't say this is an apologetics book. Apologetics is kind of the defense of faith, but in a way it could be framed that I mostly see this as a science book and again, in a way that reinforces my conviction that there is a purpose to our existence and a purpose to life, and that one of them is to kind of choose between conflicting desires within us have you had felt experience, support from your community up there.
Speaker 2:
A number of my colleagues definitely know that I'm writing this. I don't know the extent to they know the extent to which the book gets into this, so it'll be interesting to see how it is received. But I think it's a culture here where it's there's a lot of respect for different viewpoints and so I haven't had anyone say oh you know, you believe in God, what are you doing at Yale? No, maybe people think that, but no one said that to my face. So you know it'll be interesting, especially as we get into the specifics of human nature. That is sometimes where things can get a little bit, you know, interesting and different perspectives can evoke strong feelings in people of different kind of backgrounds and ideologies.
Speaker 1:
Well, I want to share this other real quick, this other endorsement that jumped out at me from an aim folks might recognize. If you struggle to reconcile faith and reason, Sam Wilkinson's profound book purpose was written for you. You will be left with an understanding of the guiding forces behind human evolution and behavior from Arthur Brooks just down the road at Harvard. Is that true? Will I be left with an understanding of the guiding forces between human? I mean, that's a testimonial, my friend. That's the big leagues right there. When Brooks says something like that about your debut book, something's happening.
Speaker 2:
Well, I hope you will. Really there are. If we want to get into the specifics, there were two kind of key things when I started to write this book, or before I started to write it, that were really bothersome to me about, and when we talk about the conflict between science and faith, a lot of what we what a lot of us mean is the theory of evolution. Right, it's been controversial basically for the century and a half since it was formally described by Charles Darwin, and there were two key aspects to me that were really kind of bothersome, that I now see as kind of an incomplete understanding of it and when we kind of have a fuller picture again, can be very much in harmony, if not reinforcing, with this sense that there's a greater purpose to our existence.
Speaker 1:
I want to talk a little bit about your agent. Mark is a good friend of mine, Mark Gottlieb. How has it been working with him?
Speaker 2:
It's been great. He's very responsive, very quick at getting back to me when I have a question or any sort of need and, yeah, he's just been a very, very responsive agent, especially for a first time book author.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, no, he's great and he's got that reputation for being really hands on and great with debuts like this. So a shout out to Mark at Trident anyone who's looking to land that first agent with that first deal Mark is someone you might want to reach out to and pitch. All right, what's next for you? I know it's hard because this book is, you know, drops this week, but I mean you can ask Greg about this with his book. You don't write an only book, right? You write a first book, so what's the second book? What are you working on?
Speaker 2:
I don't know. So you know I'm not a full-time author. Most of my time is spent conducting research. My specialty is in mental health and I spend quite a bit of time conducting clinical trials to help develop and refine treatments to improve people's depression and so forth. I you know I'm gonna see how this book goes. If it goes all right and you know I don't get canceled I will probably write another one, probably along the same lines of. The mysteries and complexities of human nature are really intriguing to me and obviously very connected with what I do as a profession. So yeah, I likely will write another one, but I'm still in the pre-planning stages of that.
Speaker 1:
Well, I'll be excited to see what comes next. And if you're listening and you have ever wondered about this dance between faith and science and religion and history and evolution and human nature and all these things and how they work together, I hope that you will. I hope you'll pick this up and I've said before I say it all the time if you don't think you're even going to have time to read the book right now, that's fine. Buy it now anyway and it's okay if it's on your shelf for a little while. It's really important to authors, particularly with the first book, that we get out there and support the book opening week with pre-orders or just buying it on the day it drops. It's also beneficial to an author trying to get a book out there and in bookstores and the algorithms of Amazon they really promote and tend to kind of lift up books that have some mojo behind them at the very beginning. I hope that folks will give this a look.
Speaker 1:
I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you a little bit today Again. I think there are people in my life with whom I have had significant, lengthy conversations about faith, their faith, why it has perhaps waned and with no judgment from me, I hope, ever some suggestions for them on how they might find it again and perhaps come to peace with this relationship between science and faith. They're going to be getting a copy of this book, sam. They're going to be getting a copy of this book. I think this is perfectly timed in today's pretty divided and chaotic world. I predict this book is going to become a powerful tool for a lot of folks and I'm very happy, honored even to be a part of this early discussion about this project. Congrats, by the way. It's a big deal right, it's a big deal your debut book. I hope you feel good about the accomplishment.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, thanks very much. It's been a long road, but it's been a satisfying one.
Speaker 1:
Awesome. Well, folks, thanks for tuning in to the book drop Mike brought you by Inkvames, excited After a little bit of a hiatus. Now we've got a whole slew of new books dropping this spring, excited to get in to the studio and to talk about them again. Links to all of Sam's good work, the things he's doing and, of course, the link to Amazon in the show notes. All right, that's it, sam. Thanks, get back to work, would you? Thanks, thanks.