Dr. Sam Wilkinson
Appearances
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Well, I think a lot of it has to do with the blessings, but also the curses of technology. We have
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
essentially become atomized as a society we have become disconnected from real human interaction which is for most people the source of the deepest sense of meaning and purpose as we essentially live on the internet or on our phones they're part of we are small cogs in large bureaucracies through our jobs or other very vast organizations some of which are essentially all virtual
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And that has, I think, taken us in a way and disconnected us from the way that we interact with each other in a face-to-face way. That is essentially how we were created. We were created for in-person interaction. And a lot of the ways we spend our time now are not in that setting. And there's been a...
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
I think an overemphasis on the individual for the last 50 years in Western society that has, I think, paradoxically led us to more suffering.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Well, there's a lot of issues and it's not a simple thing, as you probably know. One of the problems as I see it is that there's a principle in psychology that's called affective forecasting. And this is the ability to predict how we're going to feel in a given situation. And it turns out that we're surprisingly poor judges at this.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And we're not necessarily poor judges at what's going to make us happy versus not happy, but the intensity and the duration of those emotions. We're not great judges at. And there's a very influential psychology study from the 1970s that really drove this point home. It had the provocative title, Lottery Winners and Accident Victims. And as the title suggests, the researchers
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
They assessed two different groups, those who had suffered terrible accidents and were now quadriplegic and those who had won the lottery. And they compared them along things like satisfaction and wellbeing and so forth. And surprising to many people is that there weren't a whole lot of differences.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
In some ways, actually the accident victims had a better ability to enjoy everyday pleasures and feel reward. But of course, if I asked you, which group would you rather be in? Everyone hands down would say, well, I'd rather win the lottery than suffer a terrible accident. And this is because we think, oh, this is going to solve all my problems. I'll have enough money.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
I won't be worried about X, Y, Z financial concerns. But with so many things that we hope for, we desire a bigger house, a new car, a promotion. These things, they do bring pleasure and reward and so forth. But it is fairly temporary. And after a couple of weeks or so, our happiness set point goes back to where it was. The exception to this is long term and. uplifting relationships.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
When we are engaged in warm and healthy and uplifting relationships, this really elevates our happiness and wellbeing set point in a fairly permanent way. One of the ways I think about this is, look, if you had an extra hour or two that you find yourself at the end of the day, how are you going to spend that time?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
A lot of us are caught in this kind of treadmill, this kind of hamster wheel where, okay, I got an extra hour. I'm going to catch up on Emails, I'm going to catch up on a work assignment that I fell behind with. And if you conduct this exercise, honestly, this, what would I do with an extra hour? I find it disturbing.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And I find myself automatically going toward things that are not necessarily going to bring me an enduring sense of happiness and satisfaction and meaning, which are relationships. So I think the right answer is, well, if you find yourself with an extra hour or two at the end of the day, is to write a love letter to my spouse or to read to my child or something like that.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
That is what is going to build relationships. But we have this, another part of the problem is that we have this, in the West at least, we're obsessed with measuring things. And there's some good things about that. But so many of the things that we're driven to do are measurable. You can publish a paper, you can send a shipment, you can land a sale, whatever it is.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
These provide very tangible measurements of quote unquote success, but the strength of relationships
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
is much harder to measure it's much messier and these relationships often don't seem to pay out for sometimes many years especially as our children grow up and so forth and so it's easy to kind of to to take other quote more tangible measures of success and and put them higher on the priority list than a relationship but i think that is a mistake so it's important to be continually reminding ourselves of what it is that does bring you know
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
deep purpose and meaning and for almost everyone that's in some form the way that we relate with other people.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
That's a great way to summarize it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Well, there's certainly a lot of variability in the ways that cultures can develop and unfold and so forth, but there do seem, and human nature is quite malleable, but there do seem to be some constraints and some kind of deep principles that seem to push human cultures in one way or the other. So it's this, I see it as a bit of a tension between a high amount of variability and then
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
a lot of recurring themes. You know, if I can go this way, trying to backtrack or piggyback on our last comment about the importance of relationships, one of the things that I try to bring together, and I'm definitely not the first in any sense as to proclaim that relationships are fundamental to our happiness and well-being.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
One of the things that I'm trying to do is link that to biology and link that to evolution and ask the question, well, why is this the case? Why is it that relationships are so rewarding? And this, I think, goes back to something called attachment theory, which is, which was. developed by one of my professional heroes, a psychiatrist named, see where I'm going. This was John. Okay.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
So John Bowlby, he came of age professionally in the early 1900s. And at that time, many of the now outdated theories of psychoanalysis and psychology still held great sway. Among them was this sense that relationships weren't really all that important. And Bowlby, this didn't really make sense to him.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Even among animals, he saw that some of the behaviors, they didn't really have any purpose other than to strengthen relationships. So he pushed back against this very quid pro quo approach to relationships that many of the psychoanalysts had at that time. And as he searched for a kind of a way to understand this, he studied, in fact, he babies of animals and babies of humans.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And what he noticed is that human babies are incredibly immature at their birth, really more than any other creature. A baby giraffe, the first thing it experiences upon being born is actually a six foot drop to the ground because female giraffes give birth standing up, actually. But within an hour, that baby giraffe can be up and walking and nursing on its own and standing.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And you can imagine for those of us who are parents, how our family lives would have been different if our babies could walk within an hour of being born. That's hard to fathom. But he noticed that human babies are utterly helpless, and they are so helpless that many scholars who study infant development refer to the first six months or so of life as the, quote, fourth trimester.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
We are essentially born half-baked. And Bowlby hypothesized that pretty much everything a baby can do, which isn't a whole lot, cry, coo, suck, laugh, smile, that sort of thing. In part, these behaviors are intended to draw together the baby with the parents. And this is necessary and evolutionarily adapted because without a strong bond, that baby wouldn't survive.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Now, the behaviors of the baby are just one side of the coin. In order for this to work, there has to be a strong reciprocal attachment on the part of the parents. And fortunately, most of the time, mother nature cooperates. And those of us who are parents can think back to the very deep and profound sense of love and affection that we feel upon the birth of our children.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Again, I think this is where the strongest forms of love in the flesh that nature has created. This is where they come about is through these family relationships, these most biologically relevant relationships between parents and their children. And right now, as you probably know, John, there's a.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
There's a national discussion going on about the value and the worth and so forth of having children. Fertility rates are falling among developed nations pretty much everywhere. As people recognize, look, it's really hard to raise children. But I would also...
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
try to expand people's vision and recognize that, yes, it is hard, but that is precisely why it is meaningful and why you feel this deep sense of love. Those two are connected. And I think it goes back to the immaturity of our children when they are born. They really need us for such a long period of time. And so you can't really, as I see it,
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
You can't separate the deep sense of love and meaning and purpose that we experience as parents with the sacrifice that it requires. If you have a room full of a hundred parents, you ask them, what's the most challenging thing you've done? Most of them will say, raise my kids. If you ask the same parents, what's the most rewarding thing you've done? Most of them will say, raise my kids.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And I think those two are inextricably linked. It's almost the convergence of biology and psychology. You can't have this deep love without compelling sacrifice. And that's at least how I see it. And that's very interesting to me.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
We have become disconnected from real human interaction, which is for most people the source of the deepest sense of meaning and purpose. We were created for in-person interaction and there's been overemphasis on the individual for the last 50 years in Western society that has, I think, paradoxically led us to more suffering.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Yeah, I do. Look, the most biologically relevant relationships are those that nature has shaped among the family, right? I think the most primal, the fundamental relationship is between
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
mother and her child that's where you get this the strongest forms of love and affection and so forth you mentioned this is what you think evolution wants us to do is have these relationships certainly there's a drive to to reproduce and that's an important part of evolution again we are left with what i call competing natures or dual potential of human nature there's a part of this that leads us to family life
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
But there's another part of us that would direct us away from family life. And I think it's not necessarily popular among the academy, but I think we miss an opportunity if we talk about family without talking about the importance of marriage. And let me try to tie this back to biology a little bit. I mentioned this strong attachment between parents and their children.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And there's a bit of a difference. And I say a bit, that's an understatement. There's quite a bit of a difference between the biological ties between men and their children and women and their children. And in a lot of ways, this is very self-evident, right? A woman carries the unborn child for nine months.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And for most of human history, a woman has been compelled to breastfeed the infant sometimes for several years. This creates a very strong bond between women, mothers and their children. Now, men, on the other hand, have a fairly comparatively tenuous link right to their children.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And there's quite an imbalance that nature has left us with between the strength of biological and emotional ties between men and women and their children. And I think there needs to be some strong kind of cultural mechanism that tries to level the playing field a little bit and link men to the biological children.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And what I would propose is that this is a really important but under-recognized purpose of marriage. One of the purposes of marriage is to link men to their biological children. And researchers, sociologists, especially as the sexual revolution unfolded of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, they recognized that marriage and fatherhood were actually fairly linked.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And they would sometimes refer to them as a package deal because when a man was married to the mother of his biological children, his relationship with his children were generally better. Now, of course, there are exceptions to this. And certainly at the high end of the income ladder, men can be not necessarily married to the mother of their children and still be fairly present. But as you go down
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
different kind of rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, it becomes harder for men to be engaged with their children if they're not married to the mother of those children. This is a sensitive issue and I understand why, but I think it is important if we're talking about family, we're talking about the importance of marriage as well in linking men to those biological children.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
To me, there's a real connection between marriage and biology, even in some ways, evolution.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
I actually 100% agree with that conclusion. I also feel that one of the purposes, again, there's a lot of principles that we're trying to deal with here, but the fact that evolution was not random for me, this provides some room for there to be a purpose. And when you look at the way that I think that nature has shaped us, it leaves us pulled in these different directions, right?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
These, as you mentioned, this capacity for altruism but also selfishness, cooperation but also aggression, love but also lust, in theological terms, good and evil. And I really feel that we have both of these capacities in our flesh. And when you combine that with this notion that we choose, we can make choices,
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
To me, it seems that one of the purposes of our existence is to choose between these competing natures within us. And it wouldn't be a real test unless we were pulled in one direction or the other. There's a, as you probably know, there's a somewhat cliche motif of a cartoon character walking down the street. He's got a little angel on one shoulder.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
the devil on the other and i think there may be more truth to that than we realize a lot of times when we're making choices there's something whispering to us in our psyche of do this or do that we fundamentally have to choose between these competing impulses and now of course culture makes a big deal and we make decisions within the context of our culture and it's so important because culture shapes and impacts the decisions that we make and and we need to do our best to
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
John, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be here.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
reshape the cultures in ways that I think will lead more people to develop families. Because I think when people find themselves in families, they are more likely to choose the better angels of their nature.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
I like this concept of the small choices that we make, they definitely compound over time. And that's true. And to me, I constantly have to reevaluate how much time am I spending on my phone versus with my children at night or something like that. This concept I think is also relevant for at least a personal decision I make, which is to go to church every week.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
So there's a lot of data that going to church is associated with better health, better happiness, and so forth. I was giving a lecture to students here at Yale, and I mentioned that people who go to church, going to church is associated with living longer. There's a mortality effect, a protective mortality effect.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And he made the kind of the smart comment, you mean if I go to church enough, I might achieve eternal life? And I said, yeah, you've got the picture. Going to church, there's a lot of what's called social priming at church where you're reminded, hey, you're supposed to look out not for number one, but you're supposed to look out for others. You're supposed to give to the poor.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
You're supposed to treat others kindly and treat others the way that you would want to be treated. I've made a commitment with my wife that, you know, unlike violently ill, We are going to church, whether we're on vacation, whether we're visiting family somewhere. Every Sunday, we're going to be there because we feel that is important.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And those small choices over a lifetime, they make a difference in who you are and who you become. And the types of character, the type of character that you develop over time. And we want that, especially we want that for our children. There's a lot of there's a, I think there's a lot of people who will say, look, I'm spiritual, but not religious.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And I think one of the reasons they say that is because look in any organization, There's a risk of corruption. There's a risk of bad things happening. Human's hypocrisy is embedded within human nature. And it's unfortunate. And we need to figure out ways that we can make our churches less likely to have those corruption and so forth.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
But at the same time, so many of the beneficial aspects of believing is being a part of a social organization that also believes and that reminds you on a daily basis and really confronts you with opportunities. to think outside of yourself and think outside of your own home and to serve others who may be struggling or in need.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
You know, when you talk about these micro choices and how they compound over time, I view that as without knowing that theory back when my wife and I got married some 17, 18 years ago, this is one of the reasons that we've decided to do this over and over again, because we know that it has effect over the long term.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
I know Joseph Campbell. I know that work. I've never read it cover, unfortunately. It's one of the ones that's on my bookshelf somewhere.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
I don't know. I mean, certainly people are moving away from organized religion. I think that's not a great trend for society. I honestly don't know. I'm going to have to think about that. So if you can give me a little bit of time.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
No, I'd be happy to. So as you mentioned, I grew up with a religious background that was an important part of my family's life. And I served a two-year mission for my faith when I was 19 or so, 18 or 19. And that really opened my eyes to the way that some people live. I served mostly among Spanish speaking people. It was here in the United States, but mostly working with immigrants and such.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
I mean, it's great when you have a teacher like that who can do that, because I mean, some of these truths, we talk about these people who are studying happiness and the importance of relationships. A lot of these truths were known for a long time. So, but I think because we are not farmers anymore, so many of these parables apply to how you farm the land and that sort of thing.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
It's sometimes harder for people to contextualize and understand the culture during which, around which these stories are told. But when you have a teacher like that who can translate them and help people understand them, there are remarkable truths in them. The wisdom is timeless, I think.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know that I have a ready answer, but I totally agree that the things that we read about on the news, the things that really get our attention and drive ratings are often negative, right? Because fear is a very powerful emotion and there's reasons for that evolutionarily.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Unfortunately, most of the time, these new, especially these national news networks do not showcase stories like Barbara Goodson or others who perform these relatively quiet acts of selfless service. I mean, I think it goes to how do we spend our time and attention, especially for parents, What kind of role models are we putting out for our children?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And this isn't to say don't take your kids to a movie, but I think it's important to talk to them about who are the real heroes? Who are the people that we're trying to be like? Are they people who have achieved fame and wealth? A lot of times fame and wealth can make it hard to be a good person and can go to people's heads.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And I think one of the ways that it really impacted me was actually during my medical training. So I finished my undergraduate education and then I started medical school and within the year of starting medical school.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
So I don't know that I have a magic answer for you, John, but other than to say, I think a lot of this is how, what do we teach our kids and what role models do we hold up for our kids and really for ourselves? Because there are those people among us and they are, they aren't on the the nightly news channel.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
So we need to do a better job at least in our local communities of recognizing that and pointing ourselves and our families to recognize those examples and try to emulate them.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Oh, I love that comment. And I've heard of his book and I need to read it. It's been on my, again, one of those books on my shelves that I need to move towards the end table by my bed so I can read it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
I really went through this period where I was struggling almost in a religious sense where it seemed like what I was learning in school was at odds with the sense that I had that most people have that life has purpose and value and meaning.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
I think you're right. I mean, this is the, I think the great teaching from Jesus, which is to, before you, you look for the moat in your neighbor's eye to, to remove the beam in your own eye. And again, a lot of people don't understand what those words mean. The moat is basically a splinter.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
So before you see the splinter in your neighbor's eye, take out the beam, which is literally like a two by four in your own eye, which is There's this aspect of human nature that it's difficult to see our own weakness. It's easier to see other people's weaknesses than to see our own.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
But taking the time to disconnect from technology and to reconnect with meditation, with prayer, with internal reflection of what am I, what am I doing? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? Where am I lacking? I think would do a world of good for society. If we could help people to internally reflect more on
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
their own purpose, what they're trying to do and the character that they're trying to develop, that we are trying to develop.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Prioritize family relationships. I think if you're young, What are the steps you might need to do to, to form a family? Most people, despite the fact that people are having less children, most people still want to have families. There's a strong internal desire to do that. And we make roadmaps for our careers, but we often don't make roadmaps for what leads to marriage, what leads to family.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And so I think the most important thing we need to do is prioritize our family relationships.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
I have a website, SamuelTWilkinson.com, or you can look me up on the Yale website. I'm at the Yale School of Medicine, and I'm relatively easy to find there, Samuel Wilkinson.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And I went through this internal struggle, this wrestle where I had to draw on different sources, both religious, but also scientific and figure out how, if I could, first of all, and then how I could try to fit these together in my mind and say, yes, I think there is a purpose to our existence, a purpose to our lives. And it fits in with science in this way.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And that really was a very pivotal moment and changed the way that I think see people and also see life. And it has laid the way for a lot of the topics that I tried to study and research in my career.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
So one of the aspects of the theory of evolution that I didn't was this sense that The way that life came about was totally random and haphazard. What some scientists have called the doctrine of randomness, right? That would seem to be at odds, at least to me, with the notion that we have a purpose and a meaning to our existence if things just randomly and haphazardly came about.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
That was one of the issues that I didn't like. Another aspect was what I thought The theory of evolution implied about human nature. And that is that we are ultimately selfish and aggressive and self-serving and so forth. And that was a bitter pill to swallow. And it turns out that my understanding of those two issues were just naive from a scientific view.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And I studied, I reflected, I did a lot of reading and recognized that my assumptions were not quite right, were not complete. And that the way that evolution has unfolded has definitely been not random. And also the way that nature has shaped us, even through evolutionary mechanisms, Yes, there is a part to us that is selfish and self-serving and aggressive and so forth.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
But there's another part to us that is altruistic and can be quite cooperative and peaceful and so forth. And those are the two issues that I really struggled with. And as I pulled things together, really had this kind of aha moment where it just changed the way that I viewed the world and the way that I viewed other human beings.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Thank you. That was a pleasant recognition from the next big idea club.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And thank you for noticing that in the acknowledgements. So he came to Baltimore to give a talk when I was a medical student and it was not in a professional capacity, but he was a religious leader in my faith and This was at the height of when I was struggling with this. And he he's just such a dynamic and powerful speaker.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And it really he was just an example to me of someone who could, while at the very highest of academic institutions, could hold both of these things in his mind at the same time to this faith, but also this the academic pursuits. And I really had no business at all reaching out to him. I mean, he was a as those who know him, He was incredibly busy.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
He was talking with leaders of government and states and companies at this highest levels. But he was just so kind to respond to me when I literally just emailed him. And he gave me kind of the confidence that I needed. I explained a little bit about this struggle I was having and told him that at some point I wanted to write a book about it. And he encouraged me.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And that, I mean, I feel like that more than anything gave me the confidence that I needed at that time. I was just a first year medical student and this public intellectual of a very high level corresponded with me and encouraged me and just such a kind thing to do on his part. I...
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Regret that he passed away before my book was published, but hopefully at some point I'll be able to pick up that conversation and thank him face to face and remind him the way that he touched my life in a very personal way. So in a very personal way, he was just a real inspiration and just built my confidence and will be forever grateful for that token of generosity that he showed to me.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And let me, I'll just highlight the problem here. So this issue, there's a well-known physician scientist who put it well. I think when he said he was at one point, the Dean of the Yale school of medicine, where I now work, he said, I cannot make my peace with the randomness doctrine. I cannot abide the notion of purposelessness and blind chance in nature. And yet I do not know what to put.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
and its place for the quieting of my mind. We talk about the absurdity of the human situation. We do this because we do not know how we fit in or what we are for. It's a man named Lewis Thomas.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
That was again at the crux of one of the things I was struggling with because it would seem to be that if life came about through totally random means, then it's hard to see how there is a purpose to our existence or any sort of deep meaning And it turns out that this is not quite the way that evolution has worked.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And a lot of this work has been discovered by a well-known and well-regarded scientist named Simon Conway Morris. And he has noticed there are these patterns that have emerged where you have different features and functions that have developed independently over and over and over again so that you see that there are these
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
Maybe higher order principles that have constrained or guided the process to go in certain directions and not others. So I'll give an example, birds and bats and butterflies. They all have wings and they're all slightly different, but They all independently developed the wings.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
And this has happened about a half dozen times, maybe a little more, a little less, that organisms have independently developed the capacity for flight. There's another famous example is eyes. So eyes have developed independently about 50 different times. Humans have pretty much the same exact type of eyes as an octopus.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
or squid, but our eyes, they independently develop these remarkably identical structures, despite the fact that they were not that closely related. A dolphin and a shark look very similar, but they're really not that closely related. They each develop this similar body form independently. So over and over again, this notion that there are
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
There's something that is guiding evolution to go in certain ways and not others. Now, a big part of this is what is helpful for survival or this principle of natural selection. But there's something in addition to that seems to lead the process to go in one direction and not a host of others.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson on Why Life Is a Test of Good and Evil | EP 581
So there may be some randomness going on, but it's a much, much smaller piece of the puzzle than I think we originally understood.