The "King" of ANTS

THE “KING” OF ANTS

“We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity”

Edward Osborne "E. O." Wilson (born June 10, 1929) is an American biologist, researcher (sociobiology, biodiversity), theorist (consilence, biophilia), naturalist (conservationist) and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world's leading authority.

Wilson is known for his scientific career, his role as "the father of sociobiology", his environmental advocacy, and his secular-humanist and deist ideas pertaining to religious and ethical matters.

Wilson was the Joseph Pellegrino University Research Professor in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and a New York Times bestseller for The Social Conquest of Earth and Letters to a Young Scientist.

Wilson was born in Birmingham, Alabama. According to his autobiography Naturalist, he grew up mostly around Washington, D.C. and in the countryside around Mobile, Alabama. From an early age, he was interested in natural history. His parents, Edward and Inez Wilson, divorced when he was seven. The young naturalist grew up in several cities and towns, moving around with his father and his stepmother. In the same year that his parents divorced, Wilson blinded himself in one eye in a fishing accident. He suffered for hours, but he continued fishing. He did not complain because he was anxious to stay outdoors. He never went in for medical treatment. Several months later, his right pupil clouded over with a cataract. He was admitted to Pensacola Hospital to have the lens removed. Wilson writes, in his autobiography, that “[t]he surgery was a terrifying [19th] century ordeal.” Today, he suffers from the phobia of being enclosed in a “closed space with [his] arms immobilized and [his] face covered with an obstruction.” Wilson was left with full sight in his left eye, with a vision of 20/10.He lost his stereoscopy, but he could see fine print and the hairs on the body of small insects. His reduced ability to observe mammals and birds led him to concentrate on insects. At nine, Wilson undertook his first expeditions at the Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. He began to collect insects and he gained a passion for butterflies. He would capture them using nets made with brooms, coat hangers, and cheesecloth bags. Going on these expeditions lead to Wilson’s fascination with ants. He describes in his autobiography how one day he pulled the bark of a rotting tree away and discovered citronella ants underneath. The worker ants he found were “short, fat, brilliant yellow, and emitted a strong lemony odor. Wilson said the event left a “vivid and lasting impression on [him].” He also earned the Eagle Scout award and served as Nature Director of his Boy Scout summer camp. At the age of 18, intent on becoming an entomologist, he began by collecting flies, but the shortage of insect pins caused by World War II caused him to switch to ants, which could be stored in vials. With the encouragement of Marion R. Smith, a myrmecologist from the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, Wilson began a survey of all the ants of Alabama. This study led him to report the first colony of fire ants in the US, near the port of Mobile.

Concerned that he might not be able to afford to go to a university, Wilson attempted to enlist in the United States Army. His plan was to earn U.S. government financial support for his education, but he failed his Army medical examination due to his impaired eyesight. Wilson was able to afford to enroll in the University of Alabama after all. There, he earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees In Biology. He later earned his Ph.D. degree in Biology from Harvard University.

Theories and beliefs:

Epic of evolution:

"The evolutionary epic" Wilson wrote in his book On Human Nature "is probably the best myth we will ever have." Wilson's intended usage of the word "myth" does not denote falsehood - rather, a grand narrative that provides people with placement in time—a meaningful placement that celebrates extraordinary moments of shared heritage^. Wilson was not the first to use the term, but his fame prompted its usage as the morphed phrase epic of evolution.

Wilson explained the need for the epic of evolution:

Human beings must have an epic, a sublime account of how the world was created and how humanity became part of it... Religious epics satisfy another primal need. They confirm we are part of something greater than ourselves... The way to achieve our epic that unites human spirituality, instead of cleave it, it is to compose it from the best empirical knowledge that science and history can provide.

Sociobiology

Wilson used sociobiology and evolutionary principles to explain the behavior of the social insects and then to understand the social behavior of other animals, including humans, thus established sociobiology as a new scientific field. He argued that all animal behavior, including that of humans, is the product of heredity, environmental stimuli, and past experiences, and that free will is an illusion. He has referred to the biological basis of behavior as the "genetic leash”. The sociobiological view is that all animal social behavior is governed by epigenetic rules worked out by the laws of evolution. This theory and research proved to be seminal, controversial, and influential.

Ants and social insects:

Wilson, along with Bert Hölldobler has done a systematic study of ants and ant behavior, culminating in their encyclopedic work, The Ants (1990). Because much self-sacrificing behavior on the part of individual ants can be explained on the basis of their genetic interests in the survival of the sisters, with whom they share 75% of their genes (though the actual case is some species' queens mate with multiple males and therefore some workers in a colony would only be 25% related), Wilson was led to argue for a sociobiological explanation for all social behavior on the model of the behavior of the social insects. In his more recent work, he has sought to defend his views against the criticism of younger scientists such as Deborah Gordon, whose results challenge the idea that ant behavior is as rigidly predictable as Wilson's explanations make it.

Edward O. Wilson, referring to ants, once said that “Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species", meaning that while ants and other eusocial species appear to live in communist -like societies, they only do so because they are forced to do so from their basic biology, as they lack reproductive independence: worker ants, being sterile, need their ant-queen to survive as a colony and a species and individual ants cannot reproduce without a queen, thus being forced to live in centralized societies. Humans, however, do possess reproductive independence so they can give birth to offspring without the need of a "queen", and in fact humans enjoy their maximum level of Darwinian fitness only when they look after themselves and their offspring, while finding innovative ways to use the societies they live in for their own benefit.

Consilience:

In his 1998 book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Wilson discusses methods that have been used to unite the sciences, and might be able to unite the sciences with the humanities. Wilson prefers and uses the term "Consilience" to describe the synthesis of knowledge from different specialized fields of human endeavor. He defines human nature as a collection of epigenetic rules, the genetic patterns of mental development. He argues that culture and rituals are products, not parts, of human nature. He says art is not part of human nature, but our appreciation of art is. He argues that concepts such as art appreciation, fear of snakes, or the incest taboo (Western Effect) can be studied by scientific methods of the natural sciences. Previously, these phenomena were only part of psychological, sociological, or anthropological studies. Wilson proposes that they can be part of interdisciplinary research.

Criticism of human sociobiology:

Wilson experienced significant criticism for his sociobiological views from several different communities. The scientific response included several of Wilson's colleagues at Harvard, such as Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, who were strongly opposed to his ideas regarding sociobiology. Marshall Sahlin’s work The Use and Abuse of Biology was a direct criticism of Wilson's theories.

Politically, Wilson's sociobiological ideas have offended some Marxists who favored the idea that human behavior was culturally based. Sociobiology re-ignited the nature-versus-nurture debate, and Wilson's scientific perspective on human nature led to public debate. He was accused of "racism, misogyny, and eugenics." In one incident, his lecture was attacked by the International Committee Against Racism, a front group of the Progressive Labor Party, where one member poured a pitcher of water on Wilson's head and chanted "Wilson, you're all wet" at an AAAS conference in November 1978. Wilson later spoke of the incident as a source of pride: "I believe...I was the only scientist in modern times to be physically attacked for an idea."

“I believe Gould was a charlatan,” Wilson told The Atlantic. “I believe that he was ... seeking reputation and credibility as a scientist and writer, and he did it consistently by distorting what other scientists were saying and devising arguments based upon that distortion.”

Religious objections included those of Paul E. Rothrock, who said: "... sociobiology has the potential of becoming a religion of scientific materialism." 

“You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right to you and strive to be the best, however hard the path.aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.”

Books: