Darwin's Bridge

A new book on social applications of Darwinism is out:

Darwin's Bridge: Uniting the Humanities and Sciences, edited by Joseph Carroll, Dan P. McAdams, Edward O. Wilson

Joseph Carroll has previously written Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature

The publisher's blurb says:

• Collects the most advanced work in the consilience movement
• Demonstrates how far science has gone toward unifying knowledge about the human species, and what still needs to be done
• Each chapter takes a different disciplinary approach to the question of "human nature"
• Features expert perspectives from a variety of disciplines, including evolutionary biology, the humanities, social sciences, and more

The book seems quite focussed on Wilson's concept of consilience. There doesn't seem to be much about cultural evolution, though a few of the contributors are knowledgeable about it. Wilson doesn't seem to have got to grips with cultural evolution yet - still favoring the 'it all boils down to DNA genes' version he was promoting in the 1980s. This seems like a head-in-the-sand approach to me, ruling out the possibility of a memetic takeover on a-priori grounds. The main mention of memes is some meme FUD from Massimo Pigliucci. Initial impressions lead to low expectations for this volume here, though perhaps some of the contributions will be of interest.