Edward Osborne Wilson

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). □

Wilson, Edward Osborne

American Biologist 1929-

Edward Osborne Wilson was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Wilson originated the field of science called sociobiology, which argues that social animals, including humans, behave mainly according to rules written in their genes . Wilson is also considered the world's leading expert on ants.

Wilson's interest in biology began in childhood. He attended the University of Alabama, obtaining a bachelor of science degree in 1949 and a master of science degree in 1950. After obtaining his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1955, he joined the Harvard faculty. He became a professor in 1964 and curator of entomology (the study of ants) at the university's Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1971.

Wilson has written many important books. In 1971 he published The Insect Societies, his definitive work on ants and other social insects. His second major work, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), presented his theories about the biological basis of social behavior. These ideas proved controversial among some scientists and made Wilson famous. His theories caused scientists to discuss and further research the long-standing argument about "nature versus nurture." This is the debate over how much of human behavior is determined by genetics and how much by the environment in which a person is raised. Two of Wilson's books won a Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction: On Human Nature in 1979, and The Ants (cowritten with Bert Holldobler) in 1991. Wilson's other books include The Diversity of Life (1992) and his autobiography, Naturalist (1994).

Wilson has made many important scientific discoveries and contributions to biology. He was the first to determine that ants communicate mainly through the exchange of chemical substances called pheromones . Wilson worked with the American scientist Robert MacArthur to develop a theory on populations of species living on islands. Working with another scientist, W. L. Brown, Wilson developed the concept of character displacement . This is the theory that when two closely related species first come into contact, they undergo relatively rapid evolutionary changes. This ensures that they will not have to compete fiercely with one another and that they will not interbreed.

Alarmed by the loss of species throughout the world, Wilson has taken an active role in alerting policymakers and the public about this crisis. Wilson argues that humans are causing the greatest mass extinction of plant and animal species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. He is an outspoken and active advocate of conserving Earth's resources.

Wilson has received many scientific awards throughout his distinguished career. He was named by Time magazine as one of America's twenty-five most influential people of the twentieth century. He was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. In 1990 he shared Sweden's Crafoord Prize with the American biologist Paul Ehrlich. In 1996, Wilson was named by Time magazine as one of America's twenty-five most influential people of the twentieth century.

Denise Prendergast

Bibliography

Daintith, John, Sarah Mitchell, Elizabeth Tootil, and Derek Jertson. Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists, vol. 2, 2nd ed. Bristol, U.K.: Institute of Physics Publishing, 1994.

Wilson, Edward O. The Diversity of Life. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1992.

Internet Resources

"Edward Osborne Wilson." Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. <http://www.2think.org/sociobiology.shtml>.

WILSON, E(DWARD) O(SBORNE) 1929-

Biologist

Genetics as Destiny

E. O. Wilson's 1975 book Sociobiology vigorously contested the firm boundary between biology, on the one hand, and culture on the other. He proposed that traits like altruism and aggression, believed since the 1930s to be exclusively learned behaviors, were in fact the result of genetic predisposition. He extended the field of population biology and evolutionary theory to argue that many social behaviors, including human ones, are the result of a biological impulse lodged in one's genes. For example, even the altruistic sacrifice of one life for another increases the chances that genes from one's species will survive. Wilson writes that "In a Darwinist sense, the organism does not live for itself. Its primary function is not even to reproduce other organisms; it reproduces genes and serves as their temporary carrier." He popularized these views in his 1978 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, On Human Nature.

Ants

Educated at the University of Alabama and Harvard, Wilson's training was in entomology, the study of insects. He received his Ph.D. for exhaustive study of the ant genus Lasius. Most of his books have focused on entomology, including The Insect Societies (1971) and The Insects (1977). However, he also has done research on population ecology. In 1969 Wilson worked with D. S. Simberloff to study insect populations on a Florida island. They began by spraying the island with pesticides to remove all insect life, then observed that the same species returned, and in the same proportions in which they had originally occupied the island. From this they concluded that a given ecosystem could only sustain a fixed number of species.

Controversy

Wilson's work founded a new discipline, sociobiology. Sociobiology has given rise to controversial propositions, such as the adaptive features of rape. Rape can be seen as an aggressive means of furthering the survival of the male's genes. Unsurprisingly, the idea that rape and other undesirable human behaviors are natural has been vigorously disputed. Although Wilson has tried to reassure critics that he believes only about 10 percent of human behaviors are biologically determined, his students have gone farther. Wilson has been picketed, and at his home institution of Harvard the Committee Against Racism has called sociobiology "dangerously racist." The notion of biology as determinative of human behavior recalls late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century notions of a biological basis of racial inferiority and social Darwinism, a set of doctrines that proposes that the poor are poor because their inadequate genetic endowment dooms them to failure in the struggle for the survival of the fittest.

Wilson, Edward O. ( Osborne) (1929– ) US entomologist, ecologist and sociobiologist. In 1956, a year after obtaining his Ph.D. from Harvard University, Wilson and William L. Brown introduced the concept of ‘character displacement’ to describe how closely related species undergo rapid evolutionary differentiation after first coming into contact with each other. In Theory of Island Biogeography (1967), Wilson and Robert MacArthur developed the notion that “a dynamic equilibrium number of species exists for any island.” Wilson's Insect Societies (1971) is a definitive study of ants and other social insects. In Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), Wilson presented his controversial theories about the biological basis of human social behaviour. Wilson won a Pulitzer Prize for On Human Nature (1978), in which he explored the contribution of sociobiology to the understanding of human aggression and sexuality. He received a second Pulitzer Prize for The Ants (1988, written with Bert Hölldobler). In The Diversity of Life (1992) and The Future of Life (2001), Wilson examined the threat to biodiversity posed by human activity. Other works include the autobiography Naturalist (1994). See also evolution

E. O. Wilson (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).