Wilson, Edward Osborne,
1929–2021, American sociobiologist, b. Birmingham, Ala., Univ. of
Alabama (B.S., 1949; M.S.,1950), Harvard Univ (Ph.D., 1955). Founder of
sociobiology,
Wilson joined the Harvard faculty in 1956, eventually becoming university
professor (1994) and university research professor (1997, emeritus from
2002). His exhaustive study of ants and other social insects, on which he
was 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 secular and religious thinkers to work together to preserve
biodiversity. He and Robert H. MacArthur wrote The Theory of Island
Biogeography (1967), which examined and sought to explain how
isolated natural communities acquire and lose species; it became highly
influential in the development of the field of ecology. 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), The Social Conquest of Earth
(2012), Anthill (2010, a novel), The Meaning of
Human Existence (2014), A Window on Eternity
(2014), on the destruction and rebirth of Mozambique's Gorongosa National
Park, Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life (2016), a
call for interconnected development-free zones on half the earth to preserve
species, The Origins of Creativity (2017), a plea for a
closer relationship between science and the humanities, and Genesis:
The Deep Origin of Societies (2019), which discusses the
transitions and factors that underlie increasing biological and social
complexity. Letters to a Young Scientist (2013) celebrates
the devoted scientific life.
See his autobiography (1994).
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