The speaker, David Sloan Wilson, believes that societies function as single organisms, and morality and religion biologically and culturally evolved adaptations that enable human groups to function as single units rather than an assortment of individual unites. His lecture was a poor attempt to explain group selection, which is selection for a characteristic specifically because the characteristics enhance the reproductive success of the group as a whole, rather than solely the individual.
The beginning of his lecture was not very helpful in proving anything; he merely quoted several phrases from scientists and read them to the audience. I wasn't really sure where he was going at this point. …
