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Robert Wright (journalist)
Encyclopedia
Robert Wright is an American
journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology
, history, religion, and game theory
, including The Evolution of God
, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
, The Moral Animal
, and Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Bloggingheads.tv
. He is a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation
.
to a Southern Baptist family and raised in (among other places) San Francisco. A self-described "Army brat", Wright attended Texas Christian University
for a year in the late seventies, before transferring to Princeton University
to study Sociobiology, which later came to be known as Evolutionary Psychology
. His professors at college included author John McPhee
, whose style influenced Wright's first book, Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information.
In early 2000, Wright began teaching at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania
, teaching a graduate seminar called "Religion and Human Nature" and an undergraduate course called "The Evolution of Religion." At Princeton, Wright was a Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow and began co-teaching a graduate seminar with Peter Singer
on the biological basis of moral intuition.
Wright lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife Lisa and their two daughters. They have two dogs named Frazier and Milo, who are featured in a few Bloggingheads.tv
episodes.
and at The New Republic
, and as an editor at The Wilson Quarterly. He has been a contributing editor at The New Republic
(where he also co-authored the "TRB" column), Time
, and Slate
, and has written for The Atlantic Monthly
, The New Yorker
, and The New York Times Magazine
. He contributes frequently to The New York Times
, including a stint as guest columnist for the month of April, 2007 and as a contributor to The Opinionator, a web-only opinion page in 2010.
, Daniel Dennett
, Freeman Dyson
, and Steven Pinker
among others. Meaningoflife is sponsored by Slate Magazine, and made possible through funding by the Templeton Foundation.
On November 1, 2005, Wright, blogger Mickey Kaus
, and Greg Dingle launched Bloggingheads.tv
, a current-events diavlog. Bloggingheads diavlogs are conducted via webcam, and can be viewed online or downloaded either as WMV or MP4 video files or as MP3
sound files. New diavlogs are posted approximately 5-10 times a week and are archived. While many diavlogs feature Wright and Kaus, other regular participants at Bloggingheads.tv include Rosa Brooks
, Conn Carroll, Jonathan Chait
, Joshua Cohen
, David Corn
, Timothy Noah
, Ross Douthat
, Daniel Drezner
, Garance Franke-Ruta
, John Horgan
, Heather Hurlburt, George Johnson
, Mark Kleiman
, Ezra Klein
, Jeffrey Lewis
, Glenn Loury
, Megan McArdle
, John McWhorter
, James Pinkerton
, Jacqueline Shire, Mark Schmitt
, Will Wilkinson
and Matthew Yglesias. They represent diverse political viewpoints, and Wright and Kaus differ politically as well.
Wright has also used Bloggingheads.tv to conduct interviews with, among others, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama
about his book America at the Crossroads; the Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg
on his book The Accidental Empire (about the history of the settlements); the weapons expert Jeffrey Lewis; the Washington Post columnist Joel Achenbach on an article of his about global-warming skeptics; and Andrew Sullivan
on his book The Conservative Soul.
, predominately in his latest book The Evolution of God
. In 2009, When asked by Bill Moyers
if God is a figment of the human imagination, Wright responds: "I would say so. Now, I don't think that precludes the possibility that as ideas about God have evolved people have moved closer to something that may be the truth about ultimate purpose and ultimate meaning... Very early on, apparently people started imagining sources of causality. Imagining things out there making things happen. And early on there were shamans who had mystical experiences that even today a Buddhist monk would say were valid forms of apprehension of the divine or something. But by and large I think people were making up stories that would help them control the world."
Wright described himself as agnostic when he appeared on The Colbert Report, and opposes creationism
, including intelligent design
. Wright has a strictly materialist conception of natural selection
, however, does not deny that there could be some larger purpose unfolding, that natural selection could itself be the product of design, in the context of teleology
. Wright describes what he calls the "changing moods of God", arguing that religion is adaptable and based on the political, economic and social circumstances of the culture, rather than strictly scriptural interpretation.
and describes himself more specifically as a Secular Humanist. Wright makes a distinction between religion being "wrong" and "bad" and is hesitant to agree that its bad effects greatly outweigh its good effects. He sees the new Atheists as attempting to actively convert people in the same way as many religions do. Wright views it as being counterproductive to think of religion as being the root cause of today's problems.
was one of three finalists for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
. The New York Times Book Review
chose Wright's The Moral Animal
as one of the 10 best books of 1994; it was a national bestseller and has been published in 12 languages. Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
was a The New York Times Book Review Notable Book in the year 2000 and has been published in nine languages. Fortune
magazine included Nonzero on a list of "the 75 smartest [business-related] books of all time." Wright's first book, Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information, was published in 1988 and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle
Award. Wright's column "The Information Age," written for The Sciences
magazine, won the National Magazine Award
for Essay and Criticism.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional...
, history, religion, and game theory
Game theory
Game theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances, such as in games, where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others...
, including The Evolution of God
The Evolution of God
The Evolution of God is a 2009 book by Robert Wright that explores the history of the concept of God in the three Abrahamic religions through a variety of means, including archeology, history, theology, and evolutionary psychology...
, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny is a book by Robert Wright originally published in 2000. It argues that biological evolution and cultural evolution are shaped and directed first and foremost by "non-zero-sumness," that is, the prospect of creating new interactions that are not zero-sum.- Thesis...
, The Moral Animal
The Moral Animal
The Moral Animal is a 1994 book by Robert Wright. The New York Times Book Review chose it as one of the 12 best books of 1994; it was a national bestseller and has been published in 12 languages....
, and Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Bloggingheads.tv
Bloggingheads.tv
Bloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...
. He is a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation
New America Foundation
The New America Foundation is a non-profit public policy institute and think tank with offices in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento, CA. It was founded in 1999 by Ted Halstead, Sherle Schwenninger, Michael Lind and Walter Russell Mead....
.
Life and Education
Wright was born in Lawton, OklahomaLawton, Oklahoma
The city of Lawton is the county seat of Comanche County, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Located in the southwestern region of Oklahoma approximately southwest of Oklahoma City, it is the principal city of the Lawton Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area...
to a Southern Baptist family and raised in (among other places) San Francisco. A self-described "Army brat", Wright attended Texas Christian University
Texas Christian University
Texas Christian University is a private, coeducational university located in Fort Worth, Texas, United States and founded in 1873. TCU is affiliated with, but not governed by, the Disciples of Christ...
for a year in the late seventies, before transferring to Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
to study Sociobiology, which later came to be known as Evolutionary Psychology
Evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional...
. His professors at college included author John McPhee
John McPhee
John Angus McPhee is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction....
, whose style influenced Wright's first book, Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information.
In early 2000, Wright began teaching at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, teaching a graduate seminar called "Religion and Human Nature" and an undergraduate course called "The Evolution of Religion." At Princeton, Wright was a Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow and began co-teaching a graduate seminar with Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
on the biological basis of moral intuition.
Wright lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife Lisa and their two daughters. They have two dogs named Frazier and Milo, who are featured in a few Bloggingheads.tv
Bloggingheads.tv
Bloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...
episodes.
Journalism career
Wright served as a Senior Editor at The SciencesThe Sciences
The Sciences was published from 1961 to 2001 by the New York Academy of Sciences. Each issue contained articles that discussed science issues with cultural relevance, illustrated with fine art and an occasional cartoon. The periodical won seven National Magazine Awards over the course of its...
and at The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, and as an editor at The Wilson Quarterly. He has been a contributing editor at The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
(where he also co-authored the "TRB" column), Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, and Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, and has written for The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, and The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
. He contributes frequently to The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, including a stint as guest columnist for the month of April, 2007 and as a contributor to The Opinionator, a web-only opinion page in 2010.
Meaningoflife.tv
In 2002, Wright ventured into video-on-Internet with his MeaningofLife.tv website, developed by Greg Dingle, in which he interviews a number of scholars, theologians, scientists and cosmic thinkers about their ideas and opinions regarding religion and spirituality, including Karen ArmstrongKaren Armstrong
Karen Armstrong FRSL , is a British author and commentator who is the author of twelve books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic nun, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical faith...
, Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
, Freeman Dyson
Freeman Dyson
Freeman John Dyson FRS is a British-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum field theory, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. Dyson is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists...
, and Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author...
among others. Meaningoflife is sponsored by Slate Magazine, and made possible through funding by the Templeton Foundation.
Bloggingheads.tv
Mickey Kaus
Robert Michael Kaus , better known as Mickey Kaus, is an American journalist, pundit, and author best known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010. Kaus is the author of The End of Equality and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The...
, and Greg Dingle launched Bloggingheads.tv
Bloggingheads.tv
Bloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...
, a current-events diavlog. Bloggingheads diavlogs are conducted via webcam, and can be viewed online or downloaded either as WMV or MP4 video files or as MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
sound files. New diavlogs are posted approximately 5-10 times a week and are archived. While many diavlogs feature Wright and Kaus, other regular participants at Bloggingheads.tv include Rosa Brooks
Rosa Brooks
Rosa Brooks is a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. From April 2009 to June 2011, she served as Counselor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy, and in May 2010 she also became Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and then Special Coordinator for Rule...
, Conn Carroll, Jonathan Chait
Jonathan Chait
Jonathan Chait is a writer for New York magazine. He was previously a senior editor at The New Republic and a former assistant editor of The American Prospect. He also writes a periodic column in the Los Angeles Times.- Personal life :...
, Joshua Cohen
Joshua Cohen (philosopher)
Joshua Cohen is an American philosopher specializing in political philosophy. He is Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society and professor of political science, philosophy, and law at Stanford University. At Stanford, Cohen is also program leader for the Program on Global Justice at the...
, David Corn
David Corn
David Corn is an American political journalist and author and the chief of the Washington bureau for Mother Jones. He has been Washington editor for The Nation and appeared regularly on FOX News, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and BloggingHeads.tv opposite James Pinkerton or other media...
, Timothy Noah
Timothy Noah
Timothy Robert Noah is an American journalist. He is a senior editor of The New Republic, where he writes the TRB column and a political blog...
, Ross Douthat
Ross Douthat
Ross Gregory Douthat is a conservative American author, blogger and New York Times columnist. He was a senior editor at The Atlantic and is author of Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class and, with Reihan Salam, Grand New Party , which David Brooks called the "best single...
, Daniel Drezner
Daniel Drezner
Daniel W. Drezner is currently a professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, the author of several books, the author of many Op-Ed pieces in major publications, a blogger, and a commentator.In 2005, he was denied tenure by the University of...
, Garance Franke-Ruta
Garance Franke-Ruta
Garance Franke-Ruta is the politics editor of The Atlantic Online. Previously she was a national web politics editor for the Washington Post and a blogger for its WhoRunsGov site, a senior editor at the American Prospect and a senior writer at the Washington City Paper, D.C.'s alternative weekly...
, John Horgan
John Horgan
John Horgan may refer to:*John Horgan , Australian politician, Western Australia MLC;*John Horgan , Canadian politician, British Columbia NDP MLA...
, Heather Hurlburt, George Johnson
George Johnson (writer)
George Johnson is an American journalist and science writer. He is the author of a number of books, including The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments and Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in 20th-Century Physics , and writes for a number of publications, including The New York...
, Mark Kleiman
Mark Kleiman
Mark Albert Robert Kleiman is an American professor, author, and blogger who is a Professor of Public Policy at the UCLA School of Public Affairs...
, Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein is a liberal American blogger and columnist for The Washington Post, columnist for Bloomberg, a columnist for Newsweek, and a contributor to MSNBC...
, Jeffrey Lewis
Jeffrey Lewis
Jeffrey Lewis is an American singer/songwriter and comic book artist.-Early life:Lewis attended State University of New York at Purchase and graduated in 1997 with a degree in Literature...
, Glenn Loury
Glenn Loury
Glenn Cartman Loury is an American academic and author. He is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Brown University.- Early years :...
, Megan McArdle
Megan McArdle
Megan McArdle is a Washington, D.C.-based blogger and journalist. She writes mostly about economics, finance and government policy from a moderate libertarian or classical liberal perspective. She currently serves as the business and economics editor, as well as a blogger, for The Atlantic. She is...
, John McWhorter
John McWhorter
John Hamilton McWhorter V is an American linguist and political commentator. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations. His linguistic specialty is creole and the process through which it forms.-Early life:...
, James Pinkerton
James Pinkerton
James Pinkerton is a columnist, author, and political analyst. A graduate of Peter Vanleslie High School and Stanford University, he served on the White House staff under both Ronald Reagan and George H.W...
, Jacqueline Shire, Mark Schmitt
Mark Schmitt
Mark Schmitt is an American political scientist and author, and executive editor of The American Prospect, who focuses upon tax and budget policies and the history and role of ideas in politics. He primarily writes, amongst other numerous articles for popular newspapers, a column called 'The Out...
, Will Wilkinson
Will Wilkinson
Will Wilkinson is a Canadian American libertarian writer. Until August 2010, he was a research fellow at the Cato Institute where he worked on a variety of issues including Social Security reform and, most notably, the policy implications of happiness research. He is currently working on a paper...
and Matthew Yglesias. They represent diverse political viewpoints, and Wright and Kaus differ politically as well.
Wright has also used Bloggingheads.tv to conduct interviews with, among others, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama
Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama is an American political scientist, political economist, and author. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. Before that he served as a professor and director of the International Development program at the School of...
about his book America at the Crossroads; the Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg
Gershom Gorenberg
Gershom Gorenberg is an American-born Israeli historian, journalist and blogger, specializing in Middle Eastern politics and the interaction of religion and politics. He is currently a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, a monthly American political magazine...
on his book The Accidental Empire (about the history of the settlements); the weapons expert Jeffrey Lewis; the Washington Post columnist Joel Achenbach on an article of his about global-warming skeptics; and Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....
on his book The Conservative Soul.
Religion
Wright has written extensively on the topic of religionReligion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, predominately in his latest book The Evolution of God
The Evolution of God
The Evolution of God is a 2009 book by Robert Wright that explores the history of the concept of God in the three Abrahamic religions through a variety of means, including archeology, history, theology, and evolutionary psychology...
. In 2009, When asked by Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public...
if God is a figment of the human imagination, Wright responds: "I would say so. Now, I don't think that precludes the possibility that as ideas about God have evolved people have moved closer to something that may be the truth about ultimate purpose and ultimate meaning... Very early on, apparently people started imagining sources of causality. Imagining things out there making things happen. And early on there were shamans who had mystical experiences that even today a Buddhist monk would say were valid forms of apprehension of the divine or something. But by and large I think people were making up stories that would help them control the world."
Wright described himself as agnostic when he appeared on The Colbert Report, and opposes creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
, including intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
. Wright has a strictly materialist conception of natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
, however, does not deny that there could be some larger purpose unfolding, that natural selection could itself be the product of design, in the context of teleology
Teleology
A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
. Wright describes what he calls the "changing moods of God", arguing that religion is adaptable and based on the political, economic and social circumstances of the culture, rather than strictly scriptural interpretation.
Atheism
Wright has also been critical of New AtheismNew Atheism
New Atheism is the name given to a movement among some early-21st-century atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises." New atheists argue that recent...
and describes himself more specifically as a Secular Humanist. Wright makes a distinction between religion being "wrong" and "bad" and is hesitant to agree that its bad effects greatly outweigh its good effects. He sees the new Atheists as attempting to actively convert people in the same way as many religions do. Wright views it as being counterproductive to think of religion as being the root cause of today's problems.
Books
- Wright, Robert (1989) Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information. HarperCollinsHarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
. ISBN 0-06-097257-2 - Wright, Robert (1994) The Moral AnimalThe Moral AnimalThe Moral Animal is a 1994 book by Robert Wright. The New York Times Book Review chose it as one of the 12 best books of 1994; it was a national bestseller and has been published in 12 languages....
: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. VintageVintage BooksVintage Books is a publishing imprint founded in 1954 by Alfred A. Knopf. Its publishing list includes world literature, fiction, and non-fiction...
. ISBN 0-679-76399-6 - Wright, Robert (2001) Nonzero: The Logic of Human DestinyNonzero: The Logic of Human DestinyNonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny is a book by Robert Wright originally published in 2000. It argues that biological evolution and cultural evolution are shaped and directed first and foremost by "non-zero-sumness," that is, the prospect of creating new interactions that are not zero-sum.- Thesis...
. Vintage. ISBN 0-679-75894-1 - Wright, Robert (2009) The Evolution of GodThe Evolution of GodThe Evolution of God is a 2009 book by Robert Wright that explores the history of the concept of God in the three Abrahamic religions through a variety of means, including archeology, history, theology, and evolutionary psychology...
. Little, Brown and CompanyLittle, Brown and CompanyLittle, Brown and Company is a publishing house established by Charles Coffin Little and his partner, James Brown. Since 2006 it has been a constituent unit of Hachette Book Group USA.-19th century:...
. ISBN 0-316-73491-8
Awards
The Evolution of GodThe Evolution of God
The Evolution of God is a 2009 book by Robert Wright that explores the history of the concept of God in the three Abrahamic religions through a variety of means, including archeology, history, theology, and evolutionary psychology...
was one of three finalists for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction has been awarded since 1962 for a distinguished book of non-fiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in another category.-1960s:...
. The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
chose Wright's The Moral Animal
The Moral Animal
The Moral Animal is a 1994 book by Robert Wright. The New York Times Book Review chose it as one of the 12 best books of 1994; it was a national bestseller and has been published in 12 languages....
as one of the 10 best books of 1994; it was a national bestseller and has been published in 12 languages. Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny is a book by Robert Wright originally published in 2000. It argues that biological evolution and cultural evolution are shaped and directed first and foremost by "non-zero-sumness," that is, the prospect of creating new interactions that are not zero-sum.- Thesis...
was a The New York Times Book Review Notable Book in the year 2000 and has been published in nine languages. Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
magazine included Nonzero on a list of "the 75 smartest [business-related] books of all time." Wright's first book, Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information, was published in 1988 and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle
National Book Critics Circle
The National Book Critics Circle is an American tax-exempt organization for active book reviewers. Its flagship is the National Book Critics Circle Award....
Award. Wright's column "The Information Age," written for The Sciences
The Sciences
The Sciences was published from 1961 to 2001 by the New York Academy of Sciences. Each issue contained articles that discussed science issues with cultural relevance, illustrated with fine art and an occasional cartoon. The periodical won seven National Magazine Awards over the course of its...
magazine, won the National Magazine Award
National Magazine Award
The National Magazine Awards are a series of US awards that honor excellence in the magazine industry. They are administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City...
for Essay and Criticism.
External links
- EvolutionofGod.net - A website for Wright's book, The Evolution of GodThe Evolution of GodThe Evolution of God is a 2009 book by Robert Wright that explores the history of the concept of God in the three Abrahamic religions through a variety of means, including archeology, history, theology, and evolutionary psychology...
- Nonzero.org - A website for Wright's book, Nonzero
- MeaningofLife.tv - Wright's website recording his interviews of noted philosophers and scientists including Daniel DennettDaniel DennettDaniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
, John Maynard SmithJohn Maynard SmithJohn Maynard Smith,His surname was Maynard Smith, not Smith, nor was it hyphenated. F.R.S. was a British theoretical evolutionary biologist and geneticist. Originally an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War, he took a second degree in genetics under the well-known biologist J.B.S....
, Steven PinkerSteven PinkerSteven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author...
, John PolkinghorneJohn PolkinghorneJohn Charlton Polkinghorne KBE FRS is an English theoretical physicist, theologian, writer, and Anglican priest. He was professor of Mathematical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1979, when he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest...
, and Francis FukuyamaFrancis FukuyamaYoshihiro Francis Fukuyama is an American political scientist, political economist, and author. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. Before that he served as a professor and director of the International Development program at the School of... - Slate magazine - Wright was a Slate contributor and many of his articles are available here via a search for his name
- The Globalization of Morality - An interview with Wright from What Is Enlightenment? Magazine
- Ambling Toward a Win-Win World? - A review of Nonzero from Radical Middle Newsletter
- Bloggingheads.tv - Video discussion site started by Wright
- Video discussions/debates in which Wright has taken part on Bloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...
- Video discussions/debates in which Wright has taken part on Bloggingheads.tv
- Charlie Rose - Charlie RoseCharlie RoseCharles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
interviews Robert Wright on non-zero-sum games, 3/3/2000. - TEDTalks - Wright's speech for the TED Conference 2006
- Video of Wright's appearance on The Colbert Report
- Profile at the New America FoundationNew America FoundationThe New America Foundation is a non-profit public policy institute and think tank with offices in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento, CA. It was founded in 1999 by Ted Halstead, Sherle Schwenninger, Michael Lind and Walter Russell Mead....