Biologist E.O. Wilson Dies at 92
December 28, 2021 6:59 AM Subscribe
I fell in love with his work after having my mind blown wide open by Vinge's "Fire Upon the Deep." Distributed intelligence grabbed ahold of me and I could never shake it.
I think only Lovelock or perhaps Vernadsky has captivated me to such a degree.
I literally keep and manage finicky colonies of pavement ants in my office - a hobby that I took up a decade ago (much to my spouse's despair).
I'm staring at them now, as it's winter, and their little movements are subdued. I'll choose to believe today that they pace themselves slowly now out of respect for the man who made "first contact."
May his memory be a blessing.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:31 AM on December 28, 2021 [11 favorites]
I think only Lovelock or perhaps Vernadsky has captivated me to such a degree.
I literally keep and manage finicky colonies of pavement ants in my office - a hobby that I took up a decade ago (much to my spouse's despair).
I'm staring at them now, as it's winter, and their little movements are subdued. I'll choose to believe today that they pace themselves slowly now out of respect for the man who made "first contact."
May his memory be a blessing.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:31 AM on December 28, 2021 [11 favorites]
🐜
posted by bad grammar at 7:33 AM on December 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by bad grammar at 7:33 AM on December 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
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I literally keep and manage finicky colonies of pavement ants in my office
Who is keeping whom?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 7:38 AM on December 28, 2021 [3 favorites]
I literally keep and manage finicky colonies of pavement ants in my office
Who is keeping whom?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 7:38 AM on December 28, 2021 [3 favorites]
🐜
posted by lalochezia at 8:18 AM on December 28, 2021
posted by lalochezia at 8:18 AM on December 28, 2021
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I've heard his name for years, but have never read any of his books. Would anybody who loves his work care to make recommendations in this thread?
posted by Ipsifendus at 8:19 AM on December 28, 2021
I've heard his name for years, but have never read any of his books. Would anybody who loves his work care to make recommendations in this thread?
posted by Ipsifendus at 8:19 AM on December 28, 2021
On Human Nature and The Ants won Pulitzer Prizes. I've only read The Ants, though it was when it first came out.
posted by Bee'sWing at 8:26 AM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Bee'sWing at 8:26 AM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
JFC, this year. I think it was back in 1999 that I came across Consilience on my local library's new arrivals shelf, and was absolutely hooked. It was the sort of grand narrative book I could really sink into, full of huge ideas. From what I understand, it hasn't held up so well as the years go on, but I think that's okay. That form of vast, sweeping argument, pulling together science and the humanities, is always going to have some blind spots and some weaknesses, but I'm a sucker for it nonetheless. And anyway, moving on from that book, getting to read about his work with ants--I still remember him describing how he theorized how heavy or light ant pheromone molecules must be, and then his delight in discovering he was right--there was a sheer joy to his writing, the joy of finding out. I feel lucky, too, because of all the writers I've tried to pass on to my kids, his books are the ones that actually stuck (which explains why I spent some time this morning feeding the ants in our formicaria). An amazing man, and the world is richer for having had him here.
posted by mittens at 8:26 AM on December 28, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by mittens at 8:26 AM on December 28, 2021 [8 favorites]
His 1994 autobiography Naturalist is a readable introduction to his life, work, ideas, and personality.
posted by JonJacky at 8:41 AM on December 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by JonJacky at 8:41 AM on December 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
Consilience profoundly changed my world view. I'd never read anything like it before.
A few years later, I was handling ants that he pinned and labeled himself! (Now they have new laser printed labels below which are easier to read but less charming)
posted by Acari at 8:46 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
A few years later, I was handling ants that he pinned and labeled himself! (Now they have new laser printed labels below which are easier to read but less charming)
posted by Acari at 8:46 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 8:54 AM on December 28, 2021
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 8:54 AM on December 28, 2021
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posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 8:59 AM on December 28, 2021
posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 8:59 AM on December 28, 2021
🐜
This is a difficult week for ecologists, having also lost Thomas Lovejoy only a day prior.
A book that hasn't been mentioned yet - I read most of The Diversity of Life when I took an introductory Ecology course in my second year of college. I didn't realize it at the time. It was assigned chapter by chapter, distributed as photocopied packets, along with excerpts from a number of other books. It was only some years later, when I decided to pick up some of Wilson's books, that I opened The Diversity of Life and realized that I'd already read it.
posted by pemberkins at 9:15 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
This is a difficult week for ecologists, having also lost Thomas Lovejoy only a day prior.
A book that hasn't been mentioned yet - I read most of The Diversity of Life when I took an introductory Ecology course in my second year of college. I didn't realize it at the time. It was assigned chapter by chapter, distributed as photocopied packets, along with excerpts from a number of other books. It was only some years later, when I decided to pick up some of Wilson's books, that I opened The Diversity of Life and realized that I'd already read it.
posted by pemberkins at 9:15 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Thank you Bee'sWing for posting this. I didn't know where to start but I was girding 40+ years of loins to acknowledge my debts.
1) In 1976 I was in my penultimate year of a genetics undergrad. In 1975, EOW published Sociobiology - the new synthesis his mighty compendium of evidence that there was a genetic component to behaviour: not only in ants [the Wilson bailiwick] but also in [a final chapter on] people. It caused a huge stir in America and ripples in Ireland and I may have been the first person in the country to read devour the book from cover to cover. Written by an entomologist but ranging wide over the plains of the animal kingdom in search of cooperative behaviour, it sang to butterfly me. I followed the book's references out to the library in The Other Dublin University to find and absorb the original papers on social behaviour and altruism by JBS Haldane, WD Hamilton, GC Williams. I wrote a long review of the book and the wider field and circulated it round the department where it caused not a ripple of interest. I was clever enough to understand the arguments but not clever enough to realise that it would constitute nothing when it came to exam time. Sociobiology didn't make me horrible person by blowing my mind out of its very narrow and privileged rut.
In Harvard, where Wilson was teaching, Sociobiology caused a huge shit-storm. Some leftist students and academics, led by Stephen J Gould and Richard Lewontin denounced their colleague for the sin of genetic determinism and wrote an open letter to the New York Review of Books. For them, and it is obvious that neither of them read the book with the same care and attention as I did, Sociobiology fuelled the belief that straight white males were naturally Top Dogs and blacks were condemned by their genes to suffer from sickle-cell anaemia, heart disease . . . and stupidity. Somewhere they found evidence that Wilson was a misogynist to boot.
2) A few years later I was in grad school across the river from Harvard and it turned out that my foster mother, a women of infinite kindness and many talents, had worked for Wilson to draw some of his ants . . . because it's better than photographing them. There was a Metathread a few years ago in which Wilson attracted some flak for suggesting that a scientist could be weak at math and still make a contribution - ya just talk to a friendly mathematician. He reckoned you could out-contract some of the the drawing too. Robert "Quant" MacArthur and Wilson's monograph on Island Biogeography [1967] is still worth reading.
3) My bestie in grad school, also studying ants, found herself in a slough of despond being undermined by an actively misogynistic PhD supervisor and found Wilson a huge support in her travails. Whatever is the opposite of misogyny in that anecdote.
Years later I read Consilience which advances the idea that nobody can nail all the skills needed to make a contribution in science and that we'd all do better talking to folks with complimentary toolkit . . . and listening back!
And last year I was enchanted and impressed by his Advice to Young Scientists which is compassionate and pragmatic. It's a good place to start his work.
posted by BobTheScientist at 9:27 AM on December 28, 2021 [19 favorites]
1) In 1976 I was in my penultimate year of a genetics undergrad. In 1975, EOW published Sociobiology - the new synthesis his mighty compendium of evidence that there was a genetic component to behaviour: not only in ants [the Wilson bailiwick] but also
In Harvard, where Wilson was teaching, Sociobiology caused a huge shit-storm. Some leftist students and academics, led by Stephen J Gould and Richard Lewontin denounced their colleague for the sin of genetic determinism and wrote an open letter to the New York Review of Books. For them, and it is obvious that neither of them read the book with the same care and attention as I did, Sociobiology fuelled the belief that straight white males were naturally Top Dogs and blacks were condemned by their genes to suffer from sickle-cell anaemia, heart disease . . . and stupidity. Somewhere they found evidence that Wilson was a misogynist to boot.
2) A few years later I was in grad school across the river from Harvard and it turned out that my foster mother, a women of infinite kindness and many talents, had worked for Wilson to draw some of his ants . . . because it's better than photographing them. There was a Metathread a few years ago in which Wilson attracted some flak for suggesting that a scientist could be weak at math and still make a contribution - ya just talk to a friendly mathematician. He reckoned you could out-contract some of the the drawing too. Robert "Quant" MacArthur and Wilson's monograph on Island Biogeography [1967] is still worth reading.
3) My bestie in grad school, also studying ants, found herself in a slough of despond being undermined by an actively misogynistic PhD supervisor and found Wilson a huge support in her travails. Whatever is the opposite of misogyny in that anecdote.
Years later I read Consilience which advances the idea that nobody can nail all the skills needed to make a contribution in science and that we'd all do better talking to folks with complimentary toolkit . . . and listening back!
And last year I was enchanted and impressed by his Advice to Young Scientists which is compassionate and pragmatic. It's a good place to start his work.
posted by BobTheScientist at 9:27 AM on December 28, 2021 [19 favorites]
cribbed from a Scientific American review of his collection, The Insect Societies:
"It is written with clarity and verve, but what distinguishes it particularly is its catholic mastery of all of biology, from paleontology to formal genetics, from ethology to biochemistry."
He spoke of conservation with authority and conviction. Here he is with Bill Moyers:
https://vimeo.com/33217550
Here's a poignent presentation from this year entitled "How to Save the Natural World", with David Attenborough and EO Wilson:
https://vimeo.com/643025923
posted by the Real Dan at 9:40 AM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
"It is written with clarity and verve, but what distinguishes it particularly is its catholic mastery of all of biology, from paleontology to formal genetics, from ethology to biochemistry."
He spoke of conservation with authority and conviction. Here he is with Bill Moyers:
https://vimeo.com/33217550
Here's a poignent presentation from this year entitled "How to Save the Natural World", with David Attenborough and EO Wilson:
https://vimeo.com/643025923
posted by the Real Dan at 9:40 AM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
If nothing else, yes, sociobiology inspired generations of feminist biologist resistance to determinism. When I was in college, feminists we're turning their quiet rage at his talk into publications.
It is telling, and a testament to the quality of Wilson's work, tho, that the latest right wing social determinist could not and did not claim Ants as his moral guidepost, and had to invent things about lobsters instead.
Island biogeography is still excellent, and the call for more interaction among disciplines, sadly has not been heeded.
I am so very thankful for his abundant love of Alabama, and the great Mobile Delta. He wasn't shy to call for land conservation in the most anti land conservation state in the Nation.
posted by eustatic at 10:12 AM on December 28, 2021 [7 favorites]
It is telling, and a testament to the quality of Wilson's work, tho, that the latest right wing social determinist could not and did not claim Ants as his moral guidepost, and had to invent things about lobsters instead.
Island biogeography is still excellent, and the call for more interaction among disciplines, sadly has not been heeded.
I am so very thankful for his abundant love of Alabama, and the great Mobile Delta. He wasn't shy to call for land conservation in the most anti land conservation state in the Nation.
posted by eustatic at 10:12 AM on December 28, 2021 [7 favorites]
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posted by OHenryPacey at 10:30 AM on December 28, 2021
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:30 AM on December 28, 2021
Let's see if we can realize Half Earth as his legacy.
posted by doctornemo at 10:41 AM on December 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 10:41 AM on December 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
One weird thing to bring up but I loved SimAnt as a kid, which in retrospect was obviously (and not secretly) inspired by Wilson.
posted by atoxyl at 10:41 AM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 10:41 AM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
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posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:33 PM on December 28, 2021
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:33 PM on December 28, 2021
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posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 2:54 PM on December 28, 2021
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 2:54 PM on December 28, 2021
🐜
posted by JoeXIII007 at 3:23 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by JoeXIII007 at 3:23 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by little onion at 2:29 AM on December 29, 2021
posted by little onion at 2:29 AM on December 29, 2021
Sociobiology was core reading in my grad program. I didn’t keep a lot of the books I read in my training, but I definitely kept that one.
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posted by caution live frogs at 7:54 AM on December 29, 2021
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posted by caution live frogs at 7:54 AM on December 29, 2021
For anyone interested, but daunted by the enormous tome of The Ants, there is a much more accessible and lighter version: Journey To the Ants, also by Hölldobler and Wilson
posted by librosegretti at 8:33 AM on December 29, 2021
posted by librosegretti at 8:33 AM on December 29, 2021
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posted by Token Meme at 10:47 AM on December 29, 2021
posted by Token Meme at 10:47 AM on December 29, 2021
There was a Nova program on him many years ago, Lord of the Ants, that I happened to catch. Well worth a watch even now I think.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:26 AM on December 29, 2021
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:26 AM on December 29, 2021
When I was very young I was captivated by the Time Magazine feature on Sociobiology, it seemed to open up an entire new perspective on things. His receptiveness to different ideas and influences was really something.
posted by ovvl at 3:48 PM on December 31, 2021
posted by ovvl at 3:48 PM on December 31, 2021
TWiV co/guest-host Dickson Despommier offered thoughtful reflections on his experience of and encounter with Wilson at 1:30:30 in TWiV ep. 847.
posted by 20 year lurk at 10:15 AM on January 3, 2022
posted by 20 year lurk at 10:15 AM on January 3, 2022
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posted by fairmettle at 7:26 AM on December 28, 2021 [2 favorites]