Wilson, Edward O.

E. O. Wilson, or Edward Osborne Wilson, (born June 10, 1929) is an entomologist and biologist known for his work on ecology, evolution, and sociobiology. Wilson's specialty is ants, in particular their use of pheromones for communication. He is also famous for starting the sociobiology debate when he wrote Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in 1975 and for bringing the term biodiversity to the public.

He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, attained the rank of Eagle Scout, and graduated from the University of Alabama and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Wilson has argued that the preservation of the gene, rather than the individual, is the focus of evolution (a theme explored in more detail by Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene). Wilson has also studied the mass extinctions of the 20th century and their relationship to modern society.

Wilson explains:

Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands.

Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects.

and adds:

Let us get rid immediately of the notion that all you have to do is keep a little patch of the old growth somewhere, and then you can do whatever you want with the rest. That is a very dangerous and false notion.

Wilson inadvertently created one of the greatest scientific controversies of the late 20th century when he came up with the idea of sociobiology. Sociobiology suggests that animal, and by extension human, behaviour can be studied using an evolutionary framework. Some critics accused Wilson of racism, and he was even physically attacked for his views. However, Wilson did not intend to apply a 'survival of the fittest' model on human society as had been true of so-called social Darwinists. His theory was scientific, not ethical — a distinction that many of his detractors failed to make. The controversy caused a great deal of personal grief for Wilson; some of his colleagues at Harvard, such as Richard Lewontin and the late Stephen Jay Gould, were vehemently opposed to his ideas.

Wilson was quite taken aback by attacks on his theory. He had apparently not expected this sort of political attack, much to the astonishment of his critics. He wrote that “the political objections forcefully made by the Sociobiology Study Group of Science for the People in particular took me by surprise.” He had been unaware of the details Marxist thought, and had not considered his paper relevant to that sort of political analysis. He had thought it would be controversial, but not in such an overtly political way. He was highly annoyed with his critics for “blind-siding” him. He objected that no one had made him aware of their feelings while he was writing his book, even though several of them, Gould and Lewontin included, were well aware of his project. Furthermore, he was angered because he felt that the critics were being hysterical and misrepresenting his position. He rejected the charge that his theory was biologically deterministic, and pointed to several passages in articles he had written which he claimed had already addressed their political concerns, for example,

"The moment has come to stress that there is a dangerous trap in sociobiology, one which can be avoided only by constant vigilance. The trap is the naturalistic fallacy of ethics which uncritically concludes that what is, should be. The ‘what is’ in human nature is to a large extent the heritage of a Pleistocene hunter-gatherer existence. When any genetic bias is demonstrated, it cannot be used to justify a continuing practice in present and future societies." (New York Times Magazine)

A fruitful result of these controversies has been his work "Genes, Mind and Culture: The coevolutionary process" (1981) coauthored with Charles Lumsden. This very mathematical work has been popularized in "Promethean fire: reflections on the origin of mind" (1983). The paradigm of coevolutionary process stands at the forefront of modern science and anthropology.

Wilson has received many awards for his works, most notably National Medal of Science, Crafoord Prize, Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, Nierenberg Prize, and twice the Pulitzer Prize (category non fiction).

Had people taken the alert signals seriously, as intelligent people must, this 1992 book [The Diversity of Life] would have set the basis for a new level of discussions on the environment and the current ongoing worldwide biotic holocaust exterminating species at the rate of one every 20 minutes. People might be working on solutions by now instead of still wallowing in ignorance. The facts are clearly and well laid out. The evidence is presented, the theories and data explained at length, at a reasonable cost in paperback (or free from the public lending library). Eight years later people are still presenting in public flawed paradigms (perhaps deliberately) to excuse their gluttonous behaviour which is crushing the planetary life-support systems.

– E. O. Wilson 2000

Trivia

Wilson was incorrectly listed as dead in a 2005 San Francisco Chronicle article.

Main works

• The Theory of Island Biogeography, 1967, Princeton University Press (2001 reprint), ISBN 0691088365 - with Robert H. MacArthur
• Insect Societies, 1971, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674454901
• Sociobiology: The New Synthesis 1975, Belknap Press, ISBN 0674816218
  • Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition, 2000, Belknap Press, ISBN 0674000897
• On Human Nature, 1978, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674634411 - Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
• Genes, Mind and Culture: The coevolutionary process, 1981, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-34475-8
• Promethean fire: reflections on the origin of mind, 1983, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-71445-8
• Biophilia, 1984, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674074416
• Success and Dominance in Ecosystems: The Case of the Social Insects, 1990, Inter-Research, ISSN 0932-2205
• The Ants, 1990, Belknap Press, ISBN 0674040759 - Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, with Bert Hölldobler
• The Diversity of Life, 1992, Belknap Press, ISBN 0674212983
• The Biophilia Hypothesis, 1993, Shearwater Books, ISBN 1559631481 - with Stephen R. Kellert
• Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration, 1994, Belknap Press, ISBN 0674485254 - with Bert Hölldobler
• Naturalist, 1994, Shearwater Books, ISBN 1559632887
• In Search of Nature, 1996, Shearwater Books, ISBN 1559632151 - with Laura Simonds Southworth
• Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, 1998, Knopf, ISBN 0679450777
• The Future of Life, 2002, Knopf, ISBN 0679450785
• Pheidole in the New World: A Dominant, Hyperdiverse Ant Genus, 2003, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674002938
• From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books. 2005, W. W. Norton.

See also

• Sociobiology
• Biodiversity
• Westermarck effect
• Green economics
• Evolutionary psychology
• Naturalist Magazine
• Bertrand Russell
• Gerard Holton
• Richard Machalek
• Terence Monmaney
• Stephen R. Kellert
• Laura Simonds Southworth
• Tom Petrie
• Barry Lopez
• Charles J. Lumsden
• Bert Hölldobler
• Marjorie L. Reaka-Kudla

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

E. O. Wilson

• "On the Relation of Science and Humanities", Harvard@Home lecture.
• "Living in Shimmering Disequilibrium", interview with Salon.
• Essay on "Science and Idealogy"
• "Darwin's natural heir" profile in The Guardian February 2001