The Last Great Naturalist
Remembering E.O. Wilson with the help of Richard Rhodes' pithy biography.
At one time, life science research was the purview of naturalists, who were a sort of gentleman scientist and adventurer. A naturalist would wander out into the wilderness to catalogue exotic flora and fauna. After extensive field experiences, they’d synthesize their experiences and wax philosophically about nature and exciting scientific ideas. This lay the foundations for our life science paradigms, namely evolution, universal cellular life, and Mendelian genetics. The exemplar of naturalism is of course Charles Darwin (1809-1882), but today I’d like to call attention to a recently passed scientist E. O. Wilson, who I see as the last great naturalist.
Edward Osborne Wilson (1929-2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, ecologist, and entomologist who was widely regarded as the world’s leading authority on ants (myrmecology) and the founder of sociobiology. A country boy turned elite scientist, Wilson monumental legacy strikes me as a sort of second coming of Darwin. He was an avid field researcher, an omnivorous and lifelong student, a more than capable experimentalist, and a brilliant theorist and writer. He simultaneously managed to build a deep specialty without losing touch with the broader body of scientific knowledge. Plus, he qualified this deep knowledge with a gentle wisdom and speculative creativity.
Not only was Wilson’s science and writing remarkable, but the totality of his life experiences are worth exploring. Recently, a great biography on Wilson was published by Richard Rhodes, the author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Scientist: E. O. Wilson: A Life in Nature covers Wilson’s life from his childhood in Alabama to his scientific expeditions around the world. The biography also explores Wilson’s initially controversial ideas on human nature and related debates, finishing by touching on Wilson’s bioconservation advocacy.
Drawing on extensive interviews with Wilson and his colleagues, friends, and family, archival research, and personal observations, Rhodes walks readers through Wilson’s itinerant childhood and unstable early home life. At a young age, Wilson was blinded in one eye in a fishing accident. Wilson retained 20/10 vision in his uninjured eye, prompting him to focus on tiny things like insects. This intense and active interest sparked productive amateur fieldwork, led him to study biology at the University of Alabama, and complete a PhD at Harvard University on citronella ants in 1955. Next, Wilson joined the faculty of Harvard University and remained there until his retirement in 1997. He also served as a curator of entomology at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.
Rhodes does an efficient job of illustrating Wilson’s many achievements in and contributions to various fields of biology. The highlights of course include Wilson’s path to becoming the world’s leading authority on ants and his major ant and evolution related discoveries. This included the finding and naming of many new species which accompanied the publication of research and books on myrmecology. One important discovery was that Wilson determined that ants communicate primarily through the transmission of chemical substances known as pheromones in the 1960s. He identified and analyzed various types of pheromones used by ants for different purposes: alarm, recruitment, trail marking, recognition, and mating. But, the biography really gets exciting when Rhodes recaps Wilson’s role as the father of sociobiology.
In 1975, Wilson published a seminal book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, which sparked a heated debate among scientists and philosophers about the role of genes and culture in human nature. It was essentially the old nature vs nurture debate, but the academic stakes and the vitriol was cranked up to eleven. In the late 1970s, a group of multidisciplinary and radical academics, named Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, formed the “Sociobiology Collective” to aggressively attack Wilson’s ideas and inappropriately impugn his character. The general shape of the criticism was of course a litany of inflammatory -isms: biological determinism, biological reductionism, sexism, and so on. Rhodes takes care to illustrate how wrong Lewontin and Gould’s charges were, which I think makes the biography an important read. In some ways this zombified nature vs nurture debate still rages today. Several decades later Steven Pinker tried to settle things along sociobiological lines with The Blank Slate (2002), but of course the same critical pattern and charges emerged. We continue to repeat this cycle ad nauseum. Regardless, over time it has become very clear that the science definitively sides with Wilson’s sociobiology.
“What is sociobiology?” and “How could it be so divisive?” are probably questions bouncing around in your head right now. Well, sociobiology is simply the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior. Okay, this sounds reasonable, right? Well, it is fundamentally materialist in outlook, which rules out dualism and beliefs about divinity. This is a feature of all natural sciences though. More specifically, the sociobiological premise is that genes (and their transmission through successful reproduction) along with other biological factors (e.g. hormones) are a significant influence on the behavior of all animals, including humans. The human part is the real kicker for opponents.
But think closely about sociobiology. The idea is a simple extension of the evolutionary model. If existing animal behaviors are the products of evolution, and humans are animals, then human behaviors are also an evolutionary product. Complex social phenomena like cooperation must ultimately be rooted somewhere in our biology. In many ways this realization preceded Wilson. It wasn’t a monumental discovery. These ideas existed before and would have existed after even if he never spoke a word of sociobiology. The real advance is that a well-respected luminary bravely championed a scientific model that threatened the pillars of hegemonic and/or insurgent ideologies. And Wilson’s elegant written thoughts powerfully demonstrated how the sociobiological model is inescapably true. Sociobiology was recognized by many left-of-center intellectuals as a dangerous threat despite Wilson’s complete disinterest in using it for political ends. The ideas were too potent. Sociobiology uprooted many of the myths we as social creatures believe about ourselves. We could no longer imagine ourselves as unrestrained masters of our destinies. Nor could we cast blame for our failures and foibles on society or history or unseen forces. Our restraints were embedded in the substrate of life. What hope is their for egalitarian prescriptions or utopia when innately driven behavioral and cognitive variation is a inexorable feature of life?
But put the sociopolitical debate out-of-mind, the actual questions of sociobiology are about how much and through what mechanisms genes and innate factors influence specific behaviors and phenotypes. This wasn’t worked out in great detail in the 1970s but Wilson’s synthesis was critical as a proof-of-concept. Now, these questions have become the purview of mainstream and elite empirical science. While still an area of active research today, we have learned so much already. The unearthing of sociobiological relationships spawned or powerfully influenced numerous disciplines: behavioral/psychiatric genetics, sociogenomics, evolutionary psychology, psychometrics, and neuroscience. Although dogged critic remains, the path ahead is clear and the fruits of Wilson’s work are ripening. The progeny of sociobiology are not only the fruition of Wilson’s sociobiological dream, but also the realization of his broader vision for the unity of knowledge, consilience.
And even after all this discussion, I’ve have still neglected many of Wilson’s other achievements. Rhodes’ biography does also cover Wilson’s work as a conservation activist. Wilson was a staunch advocate for preserving natural habitats and species diversity on Earth, coining the term “biophilia” to describe the innate human affinity for nature. Although I find Wilson’s contribution here less scientifically significant, it help illustrate his admirable personal qualities - a naturalist through and through. I don’t think we’ll see another figure just like Wilson. He was the last of this line. Yet, his intellectual legacy will continue to inspire evolutionary and behavioral science for generations.