Man of Ideas
How do you take the measure of a man who has achieved as much
as E.O. Wilson has in his 50-year-plus career? A man who has
distinguished himself as scientist, conservationist, writer,
artist, teacher, and speaker? A thinker who has launched not
just careers but entire scientific disciplines? Like the
biodiversity he champions, the depth and breadth of Wilson's
accomplishments stagger the mind. One way to sum up his
achievements is through his books (two of which have won
Pulitzer Prizes). Here, briefly learn about some of the
Harvard emeritus professor's most significant contributions,
as documented in a dozen of his books.—Peter Tyson
The Theory of Island Biogeography (1967)
Wilson's years studying ants on islands in the South Pacific
and American tropics in the 1950s led to this theory,
formulated with the ecologist Robert MacArthur (who died in
1972). In their coauthored book, the pair demonstrate how
immigration and extinction of island species are tied to an
island's area and its species' basic ecology. The theory, with
tenets such as that with every tenfold increase in an island's
area the number of species doubles, has become a cornerstone
of conservation biology and efforts to preserve "habitat
islands." The book launched a field and remains the standard
reference work.
The Insect Societies (1971)
One of Wilson's great gifts is synthesizing vast amounts of
information, often from diverse fields. In this book, he
brought together everything then known about the
classification, anatomy, life cycles, behavior, and social
organization of the social insects—ants, bees, wasps,
and termites. Through his study of the pheromone "language" of
ants, Wilson also helped develop, with Harvard colleague
William Bossert, the new field of chemical ecology.
Sociobiology (1975)
In this volume, Wilson fleshed out the then new discipline of
sociobiology—the study of the biological basis of social
behavior. In the final chapter he brings humans into the
equation. The book ignited a firestorm of protest, with some
scientists—including several colleagues at
Harvard—claiming that Wilson was supporting the notion
of biological determinism, the idea that led, for instance, to
Nazi eugenics. Wilson responded with On Human Nature,
and over time most opponents fell silent. Today,
Sociobiology remains the founding text of sociobiology
and its offshoot, evolutionary psychology.
On Human Nature (1978)
Wilson wrote this book to more fully explain his notion of the
biological evolution of culture and human behavior and to
answer scientific criticism that arose in the wake of
Sociobiology. On Human Nature not only helped to
tamp down the controversy, but it won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize
for Non-Fiction.
Genes, Mind and Culture (1981)
With the physicist-turned-biologist Charles Lumsden, Wilson
began asking, How have genetic evolution and cultural
evolution interacted to fashion the human mind? Their answer
was this book, which introduced the first general theory of
gene-culture coevolution. A furthering of human sociobiology,
the theory holds that some choices made by humans, both
through natural selection in the genes and culturally, confer
greater survival and reproductive rates. Over many
generations, the authors argue, the human population has
converged on a general "human nature" as well as certain
patterns of cultural diversity.
Biophilia (1984)
In a New York Times article in 1979, Wilson introduced
this term and concept, which he expanded on in
Biophilia. Humans, he contends, have an innate affinity
for other living things, or biophilia, born out of our
evolution among the creatures and habitats of nature over
countless generations. The book inspired a host of new
research that was summarized in
The Biophilia Hypothesis (1992), which Wilson edited
with Yale social ecologist Stephen Kellert. See
A Conversation With E.O. Wilson
for his latest thinking on this concept.
The Ants (1990)
In 1942, while scouring a vacant lot by his house in Mobile,
Alabama, 13-year-old Ed Wilson discovered a colony of fire
ants. Hardly could a brilliant career in myrmecology (the
study of ants) have begun with a more telling flourish.
Wilson's very first scientific observation, it was also the
first record of this imported pest in the U.S. He went on to
unearth more about ants than anyone alive. In 1990, he put
everything then known about the "little creatures that run the
world," as he deems them, in his tome The Ants, written
with Bert Hölldobler. The book won the Pulitzer Prize,
the second of Wilson's career.
The Diversity of Life (1992)
By the late 1970s, sensing the quickened loss of habitats and
species, Wilson had become actively involved in conservation
efforts. In 1988, he edited a volume on the first U.S.
national conference on the subject of biodiversity. The book
helped spark the new field of biodiversity studies. Four years
later, Wilson came out with yet another synthesis,
The Diversity of Life, which outlines the principles
and practical aspects of biodiversity. The book remains a
classic in the field.
Naturalist (1995)
In his autobiography Wilson talks about growing up in Alabama,
where he was born in 1929, and how a freak accident at age
seven led to his choice of discipline within the biological
sciences. Fishing off a dock one day, he jerked a newly hooked
fish out of the water. One of the dorsal spines of his catch,
a pinfish, speared his right eye, rendering it blind.
Possessed of superior close-in vision in his remaining eye,
Wilson decided to study ants. The rest is history. (Read an
excerpt from
Naturalist.)
Consilience (1998)
Ever the synthesizer, Wilson argues in this book for
consilience, literally the "jumping together" or unification
of all branches of human inquiry. He bemoans the increasing
specialization within the sciences in particular and
encourages scholars to bridge the gap between the sciences and
the humanities. "Most of the issues that vex humanity
daily—ethnic conflict, arms escalation, overpopulation,
abortion, environmental destruction, endemic poverty…,"
he writes, "can be solved only by integrating knowledge from
the natural sciences with that from the social sciences and
humanities."
The Future of Life (2002)
Wilson has become one of the world's most impassioned
environmentalists. In this book, he makes a strident plea to
catalog and save the planet's biodiversity, to halt the
human-caused mass extinction now under way. One of his latest
conservation-minded projects is
The Encyclopedia of Life. Accessible to all, this nascent online compendium will
eventually contain a Web site for each of the roughly 1.8
million described species on Earth. The goal is to provide a
central source for everything known about every living thing
and thereby to enhance biodiversity research, conservation,
and education.
The Creation (2006)
In this slim volume, subtitled "An Appeal to Save Life on
Earth," Wilson urges religious leaders and secular humanists
like himself to work together to save "the Creation." Despite
their differences, both camps appreciate the glory of nature
and understand its value, he maintains, and should therefore
join forces to help stave off its widespread and ongoing
destruction.
