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E. O. Wilson

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

Edward Osborne Wilson

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(born June 10, 1929, Birmingham, Ala., U.S.) U.S. biologist. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he taught from 1956. Recognized as the world's leading authority on ants, he discovered their use of pheromone for communication. His The Insect Societies (1971) was the definitive treatment of the subject. In 1975 he published Sociobiology, a highly controversial and influential study of the genetic basis of social behaviour in which he claimed that even a characteristic such as unselfish generosity may be genetically based and may have evolved through natural selection, that preservation of the gene rather than the individual is the focus of evolutionary strategy, and that the essentially biological principles on which animal societies are based apply also to human social behaviour. In On Human Nature (1978, Pulitzer Prize) he explored sociobiology's implications in regard to human aggression, sexuality, and ethics. With Bert Hölldobler he wrote the major study The Ants (1990, Pulitzer Prize). In The Diversity of Life (1992) he examined how the world's species became diverse and the massive extinctions caused by 20th-century human activities. In Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998) he proposed that all of existence can be organized and understood in accordance with a few fundamental natural laws.

For more information on Edward Osborne Wilson, visit Britannica.com.

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Houghton Mifflin Guide to Science & Technology:

Edward Osborne Wilson

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Edward Osborne Wilson
NARA/Harvard 306-PS-E-76-2052

[b. Birmingham, Alabama, June 10,1929]

Wilson first distinguished himself by becoming the world's leading authority on ants. His discoveries included the finding that ants communicate primarily through pheromones. Wilson then became the principal proponent of sociobiology; his belief that there is a biological basis for the social behavior of all animals, including humans, has aroused much controversy. Wilson also has been a major voice in efforts to maintain Earth's biodiversity.


Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

Edward Osborne Wilson

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The American biologist Edward O. Wilson (born 1929) was a leading authority on ants and social insects and an influential theorist of the biological basis of social behavior. He promoted the controversial discipline of sociobiology.

Born June 10, 1929, in Birmingham, Alabama, to Inez (Freeman) and Edward Osborne Wilson, Edward O. Wilson became a naturalist at an early age, after a fishing accident damaged his right eye and he learned to examine insects closely with his left eye. Growing up in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., he collected insects and decided to specialize in ants even before entering the University of Alabama. While still in college, in 1949 he published his first paper on fire ants. He continued research on these insects at the Alabama Department of Conservation and earned his master's degree in science in 1950 at the University of Alabama. After a year at the University of Tennessee, he entered graduate study at Harvard University.

Wilson's research on ants at Harvard involved him in theories of evolution and classification. He collaborated with William L. Brown on two influential papers on the field of new systematics, the attempt to classify species based on evolutionary theory. The first paper in 1953 critiqued the category of subspecies. In 1956 they proposed the concept of character displacement, by which closely related species diverge genetically when they come into competition. Wilson's Ph.D. from Harvard, granted in 1955, was based on work dealing with the taxonomy and ecology of ants.

In 1955 he married Irene Kelley. They had one daughter. After serving as a junior fellow, Wilson was appointed in 1956 to the Harvard faculty, where he remained through his career. Beginning in 1973 he was curator of entomology at the university's Museum of Comparative Zoology.

"Dr. Ant"

Wilson's graduate work included research in the American tropics, Australia, and the South Pacific. His studies of native ants soon made him the world's foremost authority on these insects and he gained the nickname "Dr. Ant." In the late 1950s he proposed a "taxon cycle," later found also among birds and other insects, to explain how Melanesian ants adapted to poor habitats by colonizing new places and splitting into new species. In 1959, influenced by the rise of molecular biology, Wilson discovered how ants communicate by chemical releasers known as pheromones, and he later collaborated with William Bossert on a wide-ranging theory of chemical communication in other species.

In the 1960s Wilson and ecologist Robert MacArthur developed a quantitative theory of species equilibrium, relating the size of islands to the number of species they contain and proving that the number of species on a small island would remain constant while the variety of species changed. Their Theory of Island Biogeography (1967) was highly influential in theoretical population ecology and its practical application to designing wildlife preserves. They argued that large areas and pathways between preserves are crucial for the survival of diversity. In 1971 Wilson summarized his own and other work on social insects in a comprehensive survey, The Insect Societies.

Father of Sociobiology

As an insect researcher, Wilson demonstrated the genetic underpinnings of the complex social behavior of ants and other species. In 1975 he extended his theories to all species, including humans, with the publication of the sweeping and controversial book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis.

The term "sociobiology" had already been in use, but Wilson's work was the first in the field to challenge scientific and popular thinking about human behavior. Wilson's goal was to unify all the behavioral sciences on the basis of ecology and evolutionary biology into a "systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior." Knowing the environmental pressures facing a species and its genetic constraints should allow scientists to predict the social organization and behavior of the species, he believed. Wilson argued that social behavior is a survival trait, and natural selection preserves patterns of useful behavior.

Since Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, scientists had tried to explain animal behavior as an outcome of evolution. But Wilson was the first to argue that the pathway to the survival of the species was the survival of individuals possessing favorable traits. Wilson explained the genetic basis of kinship, communication, specialization of labor, and even altruism. In ants, he observed, the welfare of the colony, not the individual, is paramount, and he believed the same was true for all species. "Genes hold culture on a leash," Wilson said.

The Sociobiology Debate

Wilson's boldness in reducing complex behavior to patterns with a genetic basis and further extending that analysis to humans set off a storm of controversy. Initially favorable reviews of Sociobiology: The New Synthesis noted the well-reasoned and extensively documented text on animals, but the focus of criticism was on the chapter about humans. Wilson wrote that humans always have been characterized by "aggressive dominance systems, with males generally dominant over females." He argued further, "Even with identical education and equal access to all professions, men are likely to continue to play a disproportionate role in political life, business and science." Such statements prompted a firestorm of protests from feminists and humanists, and some critics saw an ethnocentric or racist basis to his judgments about the determination of behavior.

At a 1978 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, protesters yelled at Wilson and poured a pitcher of water over his head. A letter of protest was signed by two of Wilson's colleagues at Harvard and other scholars. Public protests followed Wilson on lecture tours. Insisting he had no political motivation for his theories, Wilson denied the charges of racism and sexism, calling the attacks "slander" and saying his theories were misunderstood. He was partly vindicated in 1982 when the Humanist magazine named him its Distinguished Humanist of the year.

Wilson's next book, On Human Nature (1978), was an elegantly written essay on the biological basis for human actions and culture. Reviewer Nicholas Wade in the New Republic called it "a work of high intellectual daring." It became a best-seller and helped make Wilson's theories even more widely known. It was awarded the 1979 Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction, to which Wilson responded, "It's not necessarily a certification that I'm right, but an affirmation that this is an important thing we should be talking about."

Next, Wilson and physicist Charles Lumsden tried to create appropriate mathematical models for the genetic evolution of culture. Their two books were Genes, Mind, Culture: The Coevolutionary Process (1981), a scholarly work, and Promethean Fire: Reflections on the Origin of the Mind (1983), a popular book on the same subject, which they labeled "the gene-culture coevolution." Again, Wilson's theories drew criticism. Writing about Promethean Fire in Commentary, sociologist Howard Kaye said, "questionable assumptions about mind and culture and an extreme reductionism mar their thought and inflate their claims." While controversy over Wilson's work continued, the field of sociobiology expanded into a thriving biological discipline, mostly devoted to animal behavior.

Besides his books and scientific papers, Wilson coauthored biology textbooks and edited the Scientific American Readings series. His ecological interests led to his partly autobiographical Biophilia: The Human Bond to Other Species (1984), an eloquent discussion of human love for nature and a plea for conservation. Wilson served on the board of directors of the World Wildlife Fund from 1984 to 1990. In 1990 his lifelong fascination with ants culminated in the publication of The Ants, a comprehensive work co-authored with German entomologist Bert Holldobler. In 1992 he wrote The Diversity of Life, affirming his devotion to all the species on Earth, from ants to human beings.

Further Reading

Wilson was the subject of many reports and stories in both the scientific press (Nature, Science, New Scientist) and the popular press during the years of debate over sociobiology, from 1975 to 1980. Many of the dimensions of that debate are laid out in A. Caplan's The Sociobiology Debate (1980). See also Arthur Fisher, "Sociobiology: Science or Ideology?, Science (July/August 1992), and Scientific American (March 1993).

Columbia Encyclopedia:

E. O. Wilson

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Wilson, E. O. (Edward Osborne Wilson), 1929-, American sociobiologist, b. Birmingham, Ala. Founder of sociobiology, Wilson was educated at the Univ. of Alabama and Harvard, joined the Harvard faculty in 1956, and later became a professor of zoology. His exhaustive study of ants and other social insects, on which he is the world's chief authority, led to his Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), a controversial work on the genetic factors in human behavior in which Wilson argued that all human behavior, including altruism, is genetically based and therefore "selfish." He later called for careful study of "gene-cultural co-evolution." Critics have called sociobiology a dangerously reductive determinism that could be used to defend notions of racial superiority and eugenics; others have defended Wilson's evidence and biological reasoning.

Wilson's On Human Nature (1978) won the Pulitzer Prize; Biophilia (1984) suggests that human attraction to other living things is innate; Consilience (1998) urges wider integration of the sciences; and The Creation (2006) pleads for a unified effort by secular and religious thinkers to save the earth's biodiversity. Other books by Wilson are Insect Societies (1971), The Diversity of Life (1992), The Ants, with Bert Hölldobler (1990; Pulitzer Prize), The Future of Life (2002), The Superorganism, also with Hölldobler (2008), and a novel, Anthill (2010).

Bibliography

See his autobiography (1994).

Houghton Mifflin Chronology of US Literature:

Works by Edward O. Wilson

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(b. 1929)

1978On Human Nature. The Harvard entomologist who helped pioneer the field of sociobiology, contending in Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) that all behavior is genetically based, wins the Pulitzer Prize for this study, which tries to reconcile humanism and science.
1990The Ants. Wilson considers this collection of all the known facts about ant life, cowritten with fellow Harvard scientist Holldobler, to be his magnum opus. The book receives the Pulitzer Prize and would be used as the basis for the computer game SimAnt in 1991. Wilson and Holldobler would return to the subject in Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration in 1994.
1994Naturalist. Prominent biologist Wilson applies the principles of sociobiology to his own life, describing how a lonely nature-loving boy grew to become a world-class scientist. Reviewer Alan Lightman declares the book "one of the greatest scientific autobiographies ever written."

Quotes By:

Edward O. Wilson

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Quotes:

"I will be brief. Not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the world's shortest speech. He said I will be so brief I have already finished, and he sat down."

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

E. O. Wilson

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E. O. Wilson

October 16, 2007
Born June 10, 1929 (1929-06-10) (age 82)
Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Nationality American
Fields Biologist
Institutions Harvard University
Alma mater University of Alabama
Harvard University
Doctoral students Daniel Simberloff
Donald J. Farish
Known for Coining the terms 'sociobiology', Epic of Evolution
Notable awards

Pulitzer Prize (1979)
Crafoord Prize (1990)
Pulitzer Prize (1991)

Kistler Prize (2000)
Nierenberg Prize (2001)

Edward Osborne Wilson (born June 10, 1929) is an American biologist, researcher (sociobiology, biodiversity), theorist (consilience, biophilia), naturalist (conservationist) and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants.

Wilson is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. He is known for his scientific career, his role as "the father of sociobiology", his environmental advocacy, and his secular-humanist and deist ideas pertaining to religious and ethical matters.[1]

As of 2007, he is Pellegrino University Research Professor in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism.[2][3]

Contents

Early life

Wilson was born in Birmingham, Alabama. According to his autobiography Naturalist, he grew up mostly around Washington, D.C. and in the countryside around Mobile, Alabama.[4] From an early age, he was interested in natural history. His parents, Edward and Inez Wilson, divorced when he was seven. In that same year, he blinded himself in one eye in a fishing accident. The young naturalist grew up in several cities and towns, moving around with his father and his stepmother. His reduced ability to observe mammals and birds led him to concentrate on insects. At nine, Wilson undertook his first expeditions at the Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. He earned the Eagle Scout award and served as Nature Director of his Boy Scout summer camp. At the age of 18, intent on becoming an entomologist, he began by collecting flies, but the shortage of insect pins caused by World War II caused him to switch to ants, which could be stored in vials. With the encouragement of Marion R. Smith, a myrmecologist from the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, Wilson began a survey of all the ants of Alabama. This study led him to report the first colony of fire ants in the US, near the port of Mobile. (first-hand account, Smithsonian Institution talk, April 22, 2010).

Concerned that he might not be able to afford to go to a university, Wilson attempted to enlist in the United States Army. His plan was to earn U.S. government financial support for his education, but he failed his Army medical examination due to his impaired eyesight. Wilson was able to afford to enroll in the University of Alabama after all. There, he earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees. He later earned his Ph.D. degree from Harvard University.

Theories and beliefs

Epic of evolution

"The evolutionary epic," Wilson wrote in his book On Human Nature, "is probably the best myth we will ever have." Wilson's intended usage of the word "myth" does not denote falsehood - rather, a grand narrative that provides people with placement in time—a meaningful placement that celebrates extraordinary moments of shared heritage.[5] Wilson was not the first to use the term, but his fame prompted its usage as the morphed phrase epic of evolution.[1]

Wilson explained the need for the epic of evolution:[6]

Human beings must have an epic, a sublime account of how the world was created and how humanity became part of it ... Religious epics satisfy another primal need. They confirm we are part of something greater than ourselves (...) The way to achieve our epic that unites human spirituality, instead of cleave it, it is to compose it from the best empirical knowledge that science and history can provide.

The worth of the epic, he said is, "The true evolutionary epic retold as poetry, is as intrinsically ennobling as any religious epic."[7]

Cosmologist Brian Swimme concludes in a 1997 interview:[8]

I think that what E. O. Wilson is trying to suggest is that to be fully human, a person has to see that life has a heroic dimension (...) I think for the scientist, and for other people, it's a question of "is the universe valuable? Is it sacred? Is it holy? Or is the human agenda all that matters?" I just don't think we're that stupid to continue in a way that continues to destroy. I'm hopeful that the Epic of Evolution will be yet another strategy in our culture that will lead our consciousness out of a very tight, human-centered materialism.

Naturalistic and liberal religious writers have picked up on Wilson's term and have used it in a number of texts. These authors however have at times used other terms to refer to the idea: Universe Story (Brian Swimme, John F. Haught), Great Story (Connie Barlow, Michael Dowd), Everybody's Story (Loyal Rue[9]), New Story (Thomas Berry, Al Gore, Brian Swimme) and Cosmic Evolution (Eric Chaisson[10]).[11][12][13]

Sociobiology

Michael McGoodwin paraphrasing and quoting Wilson (pp. 16 and 222) on sociobiology[14]

Sociobiology is defined as the scientific or systematic study of the biological basis of all forms of social behavior, in all kinds of organisms including man, and incorporating knowledge from ethology, ecology, and genetics, in order to derive general principles concerning the biological properties of entire societies. "If humankind evolved by Darwinian natural selection, genetic chance and environmental necessity, not God, made the species." "The brain [and the mind] exists because it promotes the survival and multiplication of the genes that direct its assembly." The two apparent dilemmas we face therefore are: (1) We lack any goal external to our biological nature (for even religions evolve to enhance the persistence and influence of their practitioners). Will the transcendental goals of societies dissolve, and will our post-ideological societies regress steadily toward self-indulgence? (2) Morality evolved as instinct. "Which of the censors and motivators should be obeyed and which ones might better be curtailed or sublimated?"

Although much human diversity in behavior is culturally influenced, some has been shown to be genetic - rapid acquisition of language, human unpredictability, hypertrophy (extreme growth of pre-existing social structures), altruism and religions. "Religious practices that consistently enhance survival and procreation of the practitioners will propagate the physiological controls that favor the acquisition of the practices during single lifetimes." Unthinking submission to the communal will promotes the fitness of the members of the tribe. Even submission to secular religions and cults involve willing subordination of the individual to the group. Religious practices confer biological advantages.[14]

Wilson used sociobiology and evolutionary principles to explain the behavior of the social insects and then to understand the social behavior of other animals, including humans, thus established sociobiology as a new scientific field. He argued that all animal behavior, including that of humans, is the product of heredity, environmental stimuli, and past experiences, and that free will is an illusion. He has referred to the biological basis of behaviour as the "genetic leash."[15] The sociobiological view is that all animal social behavior is governed by epigenetic rules worked out by the laws of evolution. This theory and research proved to be seminal, controversial, and influential.[16]

The controversy of sociobiological research is in how it applies to humans. The theory established a scientific argument for rejecting the common doctrine of tabula rasa, which holds that human beings are born without any innate mental content and that culture functions to increase human knowledge and aid in survival and success. In the final chapter of the book Sociobiology and in the full text of his Pulitzer Prize-winning On Human Nature, Wilson argues that the human mind is shaped as much by genetic inheritance as it is by culture (if not more). There are limits on just how much influence social and environmental factors can have in altering human behavior.

Ants and social insects

Wilson, along with Bert Hölldobler, has done a systematic study of ants and ant behavior,[17] culminating in their encyclopedic work, The Ants (1990). Because much self-sacrificing behavior on the part of individual ants can be explained on the basis of their genetic interests in the survival of the sisters, with whom they share 75% of their genes (though the actual case is some species' queens mate with multiple males and therefore some workers in a colony would only be 25% related), Wilson was led to argue for a sociobiological explanation for all social behavior on the model of the behavior of the social insects. In his more recent work, he has sought to defend his views against the criticism of younger scientists such as Deborah Gordon, whose results challenge the idea that ant behavior is as rigidly-predictable as Wilson's explanations make it.

Edward O. Wilson, referring to ants, once said that "Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species",[18] meaning that while ants and other eusocial species appear to live in communist-like societies, they only do so because they are forced to do so from their basic biology, as they lack reproductive independence: worker ants, being sterile, need their ant-queen to survive as a colony and a species and individual ants cannot reproduce without a queen, thus being forced to live in centralised societies. Humans, however, do possess reproductive independence so they can give birth to offspring without the need of a "queen", and in fact humans enjoy their maximum level of Darwinian fitness only when they look after themselves and their offspring, while finding innovative ways to use the societies they live in for their own benefit.[19]

Consilience

In his 1998 book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Wilson discusses methods that have been used to unite the sciences, and might be able to unite the sciences with the humanities. Wilson prefers and uses the term "consilience" to describe the synthesis of knowledge from different specialized fields of human endeavor. He defines human nature as a collection of epigenetic rules, the genetic patterns of mental development. He argues that culture and rituals are products, not parts, of human nature. He says art is not part of human nature, but our appreciation of art is. He argues that concepts such as art appreciation, fear of snakes, or the incest taboo (Westermarck effect) can be studied using scientific methods. Previously, these phenomena were only part of psychological, sociological, or anthropological studies. Wilson proposes that they can be part of interdisciplinary research.

The unit and target of selection

Wilson has argued that the "unit of selection is a gene, the basic element of heredity. The target of selection is normally the individual who carries an ensemble of genes of certain kinds." With regard to the use kin selection in explaining the behavior of eusocial insects, Wilson said to Discover magazine, the "new view that I'm proposing is that it was group selection all along, an idea first roughly formulated by Darwin."[20]

Spiritual and political beliefs

Views on religion

As paraphrased by Michael McGoodwin[14]

The predisposition to religious belief is an ineradicable part of human behavior. Mankind has produced 100,000 religions. It is an illusion to think that scientific humanism and learning will dispel religious belief. Men would rather believe than know... A kind of Darwinistic survival of the fittest has occurred with religions... The ecological principle called Gause's law holds that competition is maximal between species with identical needs... Even submission to secular religions such as Communism and guru cults involve willing subordination of the individual to the group. Religious practices confer biological advantage. The mechanisms of religion include (1) objectification (the reduction of reality to images and definitions that are easily understood and cannot be refuted), (2) commitment through faith (a kind of tribalism enacted through self-surrender), (3) and myth (the narratives that explain the tribe's favored position on the earth, often incorporating supernatural forces struggling for control, apocalypse, and millennium). The three great religion categories of today are Marxism, traditional religion, and scientific materialism... Though theology is not likely to survive as an independent intellectual discipline, religion will endure for a long time to come and will not be replaced by scientific materialism.

Scientific humanism

Wilson coined the phrase scientific humanism as "the only worldview compatible with science's growing knowledge of the real world and the laws of nature".[21] Wilson argues that it is best suited to improve the human condition.

God and religion

On the question of God, Wilson has described his position as provisional deism.[22] He has explained his faith as a trajectory away from traditional beliefs: "I drifted away from the church, not definitively agnostic or atheistic, just Baptist & Christian no more."[15] Wilson argues that the belief in God and rituals of religion are products of evolution.[23] He argues that they should not be rejected or dismissed, but further investigated by science to better understand their significance to human nature. In his book The Creation, Wilson suggests that scientists "offer the hand of friendship" to religious leaders and build an alliance with them, stating that "Science and religion are two of the most potent forces on Earth and they should come together to save the creation."[24]

Wilson makes a similar suggestion, and appeal to the religious community, on the lecture circuit. An article on his September 17, 2009 lecture at Midland College, Texas, reports, "he said the appeal received a 'massive reply' and a covenant has been written. 'I think that partnership will work to a substantial degree as time goes on,' Wilson said."[25]

Wilson appears in the upcoming documentary Behold The Earth, which inquires into America's "divorce from nature", and the relationship between the forces of science and religion.

Ecology

When discussing the reinvigoration of his original fields of study since the 1960s, Wilson has said that if he could start his life over he would work in microbial ecology.[26] He studied the mass extinctions of the 20th century and their relationship to modern society, arguing strongly for an ecological approach:

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.[27]

His understanding of the scale of the extinction crisis has led him to advocate a number of strategies for forest protection, including the Forests Now Declaration, which calls for new markets-based mechanisms to protect tropical forests.

Criticism of human sociobiology

Wilson experienced significant criticism for his sociobiological views from several different communities. The scientific response included several of Wilson's colleagues at Harvard,[28] such as Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, who were strongly opposed to his ideas regarding sociobiology. Marshall Sahlins's work The Use and Abuse of Biology was a direct criticism of Wilson's theories.[29]

Politically, Wilson's sociobiological ideas have offended some liberals and conservatives who favored the idea that human behavior was culturally based. Sociobiology re-ignited the nature-versus-nurture debate, and Wilson's scientific perspective on human nature led to public debate. He was accused of racism, misogyny, and eugenics.[30] In one incident, a member of the International Committee Against Racism poured a pitcher of water on Wilson's head and chanted "Wilson, you're all wet" at an AAAS conference in November 1978.[31] Wilson later spoke of the incident as a source of pride: "I believe...I was the only scientist in modern times to be physically attacked for an idea."[32]

“I believe Gould was a charlatan,” Wilson told The Atlantic. “I believe that he was ... seeking reputation and credibility as a scientist and writer, and he did it consistently by distorting what other scientists were saying and devising arguments based upon that distortion.”[33]

Religious objections included those of Paul E. Rothrock, who said: "... sociobiology has the potential of becoming a religion of scientific materialism." [34]

Awards and honors

Wilson at a "fireside chat" during which he received the Addison Emery Verrill Medal in 2007
Dr. E.O. Wilson addresses the audience at the dedication of the E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center at Nokuse Plantation in Walton County, Florida.

Wilson's scientific and conservation honors include:

Main works

Edited works

  • From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books, edited with introductions by Edward O. Wilson (2010 W.W. Norton)

See also

Portal icon Novels portal

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Novacek, Michael J. (2001). "Lifetime achievement: E.O. Wilson". CNN.com. Archived from the original on 2006-10-14. http://web.archive.org/web/20061014091550/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/americasbest/science.medicine/pro.eowilson.html. Retrieved 2006-11-08. 
  2. ^ "E.O. Wilson Profile" - Comprehensive list of Degrees, Awards and Positions
  3. ^ Archive.org; E. O. Wilson biography
  4. ^ Edward O. Wilson – Naturalist, Island Press; (April 24, 2006), ISBN 1-59726-088-6
  5. ^ Connie Barlow. "The Epic of Evolution: Religious and cultural interpretations of modern scientific cosmology". Science & Spirit Magazine. http://www.science-spirit.org/article_detail.php?article_id=31. [dead link]
  6. ^ Edward O. Wilson, Foreword of Everybody's Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution By Loyal D. Rue, SUNY Press, 1999, page ix and x,ISBN 0-7914-4392-2,
  7. ^ Edward O. Wilson, Consilience 1998
  8. ^ Brian Swimme interview
  9. ^ Rue, Loyal (1999). Everybody's Story: Wising Up to the Epic of Evolution. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-4392-2. 
  10. ^ Chaisson, Eric (2006). Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-2311-3560-2. 
  11. ^ Thomas, Alfred K. (1989). The Epic of Evolution, Its Etiology and Art: A Study of Vardis Fisher's Testament of Man. University Microfilms International. 
  12. ^ Miller, James B (2003). The Epic of Evolution: Science and Religion in Dialogue. Pearson/Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-093318-X. 
  13. ^ Kaufman, Gordon. The Epic of Evolution as a Framework for Human Orientation, 1997
  14. ^ a b c Edward O. Wilson: On Human Nature - Summary by Michael McGoodwin, prepared 1991 [1]
  15. ^ a b E. O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, New York, Knopf, 1998, pp. 127-128.
  16. ^ Wolfe, Tom (1996). Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died. Vol. 158, Issue 13, pp.210ff. Forbes
  17. ^ Nicholas Wade (July 15, 2008). "Taking a Cue From Ants on Evolution of Humans". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15wils.html. 
  18. ^ Wade, Nicholas (May 12, 1998). "Scientist at Work: Edward O. Wilson; From Ants to Ethics: A Biologist Dreams Of Unity of Knowledge". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02E6D71F31F931A25756C0A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved May 1, 2010. 
  19. ^ Wilson, Edward O. (March 27, 1997). Karl Marx was right, socialism works. Interview. Harvard University. http://www.froes.dds.nl/WILSON.htm. 
  20. ^ Richard Conniff "Discover Interview: E.O. Wilson" June 25, 2006.
  21. ^ in Harvard Magazine December 2005 p 33.
  22. ^ The Creation
  23. ^ Human Nature
  24. ^ Naturalist E.O. Wilson is optimistic Harvard Gazette June 15, 2006
  25. ^ Scientist says there is hope to save planet mywesttexas.com September 18, 2009
  26. ^ Edward O. Wilson (2008) (documentary film). Lord of the Ants (television). NOVA/WGBH. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eowilson/program.html. Retrieved 2009-03-01. 
  27. ^ Wilson, E. O. (1998 April 28, 1998). Slide show, page 2. Delivered at Washington, DC. Website of Save America's Forests. Accessed 2008-11-13.
  28. ^ Grafen, Alan; Ridley, Mark (2006). Richard Dawkins: How A Scientist Changed the Way We Think. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 75. ISBN 0199291160. 
  29. ^ Sahlins, Marshall David (1976). The Use and Abuse of Biology. ISBN 0-472-08777-0. 
  30. ^ Douglas, Ed (17 February 2001). "Darwin's natural heir". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2001/feb/17/books.guardianreview57. 
  31. ^ Wilson, Edward O. (1995). Naturalist. ISBN 0-446-67199-1. 
  32. ^ David Dugan (writer, producer, director) (May 2008). Lord of the Ants (Documentary). NOVA. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eowilson/program.html. Retrieved 2008-01-25. 
  33. ^ French, Howard (November 2011). "E. O. Wilson's Theory of Everything". The Atlantic Magazine. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/e-o-wilson-rsquo-s-theory-of-everything/8686/?single_page=true. Retrieved 13 October 2011. 
  34. ^ Mythology of Scientific Materialism. Paul E. Rothrock and Mary Ellen Rothrock
  35. ^ "Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences Recipients". American Philosophical Society. http://www.amphilsoc.org/prizes/franklinscience. Retrieved November 27, 2011 (2011-11-27). 
  36. ^ E. O. WILSON AND REBECCA SKLOOT: 2010 CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZES Recorded on November 13, 2010.

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