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You are here: Home / Open Threads / E. O. Wilson, R. I. P.

E. O. Wilson, R. I. P.

by Tom Levenson|  December 27, 20211:47 pm| 29 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, RIP, Science & Technology

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Edward O. Wilson has died. Carl Zimmer’s obituary at that link is a fine, fair accounting of his extraordinary life and the profound influence he had and still has on ecosystem and evolutionary biology.

Wilson was a complicated man and led a complex intellectual life.  He was an exceptional field and experimental researcher, showing that in a molecular age there remained a huge amount to learn about the natural world at the level of the organism and the ecosystem. And he was a hugely important contributor to evolutionary theory, most famously responsible for developing core ideas in sociobiology. I can say this from personal knowledge: among all the brilliant investigators of nature I’ve had the ridiculously good luck to meet, he had the greatest passion for the living world, a seemingly limitless capacity for focus, fascination, and awe in the face of the biosphere.

E. O. Wilson, R. I. P.

He was, as Zimmer documents, also someone given to reasoning past his evidence, applying his ideas to human behavior, culture and society in ways that were easily turned into echoes of pernicious biological determinism. Zimmer argues, correctly, I think, that a lot of the criticism of Wilson/sociobiology as eugenics-in-modern-dress misread what Wilson wrote and thought; still, he pushed further into that argument that most remember or acknowledge especially in a now, mostly forgotten book co-written with Charles Lumsden. ISTM it’s fair to say that in his key ideas he found a hammer, and for a considerable while, nearly everything in the living world looked like a nail.

And (again, as Zimmer notes) Wilson was a ferocious academic battler–of necessity during the sociobiology wars of the late 70s and the early 80s, and by inclination before and after.  Je was an ambitious man who achieved an enormous amount and screwed up in sometimes major ways along that journey.

But taken all in all he was a profoundly rich and important thinker and researcher who spent a lot of time trying to do as much good as possible in the world, especially in defense of biodiversity and a planet capable of supporting not just us but the extraordinary wealth of living things with which we share this rock.

I have just a couple of personal remembrances.  Here’s the one that always makes me smile:

The first time I interviewed him was in 1983 or 4, when I was a very and unjustly confident young reporter, wanting to talk to him about his ideas about the coevolution of genes and culture (that now mostly forgotten book). He invited me to meet him for lunch in his lab–he’d bring the food.  So I came up from New York and made my way to Oxford St. in Cambridge. He met me at the door and we sat down at a mostly cleared lab bench in the first of several connected rooms where he studied his beloved ants.  He handed me a sandwich and we started to talk.  I was three or four bites into my tuna sandwich when I focused on the tube running just below eye level between us, running from one terrarium to another at either end of the bench.  There was some motion there. I focused for a second, missing what Wilson said for a sentence or two.  He followed my eyes to the parade of insects marching along the tube, and told me the species (now long forgotten). I grinned in acknowledgement, and then had to choke back a laugh…

…as I realized that I was having lunch with perhaps the one person in the country who brought his own ants to a picnic.

He got the full mileage out of his four-score-and-ten. We should all do as well.

And with that: thread, open, be this can.

Image: Albert Bierstadt, Tropical landscape with fishing boats in the bay, undated, before 1902.

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Reader Interactions

29Comments

  1. 1.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 27, 2021 at 2:02 pm

    I realized that I was having lunch with perhaps the one person in the country who brought his own ants to a picnic.

    That’s a great eulogy for him!

  2. 2.

    Another Scott

    December 27, 2021 at 2:13 pm

    I still remember when his Ants book came out. Thinking that it is the perfect example of what observational science should be – studying seemingly unimportant things (which are actually hugely important, but we just didn’t know until someone did the work) in excruciating detail.

    My recollection is that one of the factoids was that the totality of ants weighs more than the totality of humans, or something like that…

    A science life well lived. RIP.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“Who still needs to get a copy of the book…”)

  3. 3.

    smith

    December 27, 2021 at 2:22 pm

    I met Wilson a couple times, way back in the day (my spouse at the time was a grad student of his). I remember him as a genial, unassuming man, who even though he was already renowned by that time, was willing spend time hanging out with lowly grad students.

  4. 4.

    John H. McDonald

    December 27, 2021 at 2:26 pm

    I saw Wilson give a talk at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution. He said that when he gave talks to the general public, he was often asked, “You’re an expert on ants. I’ve got ants in my kitchen, what should I do?” He said he always responded, “Watch where you step.”

  5. 5.

    Chetan Murthy

    December 27, 2021 at 2:26 pm

    I remember when that long-forgotten book came out.  It seems like a different time, when the things that got discussed in learned circles were things like sociobiology, “left conservatism” (remember that?) and more generally, science seemed like the settled background for learned society.

    Sigh.

  6. 6.

    M31

    December 27, 2021 at 2:28 pm

    during college I worked in the summer in the Harvard natural history museum gift shop, where we sold pretty lumps of polished amber for jewelry, and we’d pick through it and any with ants inside we’d send upstairs to Wilson

  7. 7.

    John Revolta

    December 27, 2021 at 2:40 pm

    At a recent so-called “hobby exhibit” in New York a young man entered as his hobby a colony of ants. I remember thinking at the time: “Well, sir——”

    Presumably the young man, who was specializing in zoology, took up ants as a hobby because he subscribed to the age-old theory that Man has a great deal to learn from the ants. As a matter of fact the only thing that I ever learned from an ant was not to try to carry too big a crumb on my back or I would walk sideways.

    And now along comes as smart an ant-watcher as Professor Julian Huxley, who says that we humans can not only hold our own with ants, but possibly might be able to slip over a couple of tricks on them once in a while.

    “One of the important differences between a human being and a termite is the matter of size,” says Professor Huxley, cracking down with a dictum. “Important difference,” Professor? It’s colossal! It’s the difference between my sleeping in my bed or an ant’s sleeping there, that’s all.

    “If we had ants as big as fox terriers and wasps as big as eagles,” continues Dr. Huxley—but there I left him. I don’t want to know what the end of that sentence was. And I don’t want anyone ever to begin a sentence that way again, either—at least, not within my hearing.

    The comforting thing about Prof. Huxley’s lecture was the statement that we really don’t have to learn anything from the ant. We can go our way and the ant can go his. Contrary to our teachings, we do not have to be bending over all the time studying how the ants do it.

    Human beings and ants have a great many things in common, however. They are the only organisms which have rubbish heaps, slaves and domestic animals, and which make war with military precision. Which brings me to a remark of Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s, as what doesn’t?

    Mrs. Campbell was sitting at dinner next to an ant-watcher, who was telling, at considerable length, about the remarkable organization of ant communities.

    “They have teams and working units, with sub-divisions of labor,” he said. “An ant community even has an army.”

    “No navy, I suppose?” asked Mrs. Campbell.

    Which just about fixes the ants.

    -Robert Benchley

  8. 8.

    WereBear

    December 27, 2021 at 3:04 pm

    I’d be suspicious of science or practitioners who claim to never make a mistake.

  9. 9.

    plukiy

    December 27, 2021 at 3:20 pm

    @WereBear: The serendipitous results of “mistakes” have been a great driver of scientific advancement. See Fleming’s mold growth on improperly prepared culture plates, or the unshielded noise the revealed the existence of the cosmic microwave background.

  10. 10.

    justawriter

    December 27, 2021 at 3:23 pm

    I earned my biology degree about the time the book came out and bought a copy. I seem to remember Wilson being more cautious than many of his supporters, especially those who saw behaviors documented in surveys of (mostly white) college undergraduates as being representative of the entire species, along with those who looked for a strictly biological (as opposed to cultural) cause for those behaviors. Strict adaptionism doesn’t work for flatworms, much less a technologically capable species.

  11. 11.

    Brachiator

    December 27, 2021 at 3:30 pm

    A wonderful eulogy for a giant of science.

    Wilson was a very elegant writer and could explain complex ideas about evolution very well.

    I envy those who had a chance to interview or work with him.

  12. 12.

    kmeyerthelurker

    December 27, 2021 at 4:01 pm

    Also RIP to Jonathan Spence, whose work on Chinese history and the Taiping Rebellion in particular blew my younger mind.

  13. 13.

    Geoduck

    December 27, 2021 at 4:19 pm

    @John Revolta:  Gary Larson did a Far Side cartoon about Navy Ants in little long boats attacking a couple in a liferaft.

  14. 14.

    BruceJ

    December 27, 2021 at 4:20 pm

    @John Revolta: 

    Clearly neither had ever seen a raft of army ants during flood season!

  15. 15.

    trollhattan

    December 27, 2021 at 4:24 pm

    Speaking of (anti) science, the pathology is reaching new red state depths.

    December 27, 2021 at 3:30 pm EST By Taegan Goddard

    “At least five Republican-led states have extended unemployment benefits to people who’ve lost jobs over vaccine mandates — and a smattering of others may soon follow,” the Washington Post reports.

    “Workers who quit or are fired for cause — including for defying company policy — are generally ineligible for jobless benefits. But Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas and Tennessee have carved out exceptions for those who won’t submit to the multi-shot coronavirus vaccine regimens that many companies now require.”

    “Similar ideas have been floated in Wyoming, Wisconsin and Missouri.”

  16. 16.

    Greg Ferguson

    December 27, 2021 at 4:24 pm

    Very cool. I am glad he lived beyond his hammer/nail period, and the ill-informed arguments it invoked. Culture wars have gotten so much more septic and baseless since then!
    R.I.P., indeed. ???

  17. 17.

    Suzanne

    December 27, 2021 at 4:25 pm

    Thanks for this, Tom. Your remembrances are really cool.

  18. 18.

    debbie

    December 27, 2021 at 4:30 pm

    @Another Scott:

    NPR’s Here and Now reran their interview with E.O. Wilson earlier today. Ants were front and center.

  19. 19.

    Suzanne

    December 27, 2021 at 4:31 pm

    Tom, we need another RIP post. (Too many today.) Wayne Thiebaud, the painter, died at age 101. One of my favorites of that Pop era, so much lovely brushwork and coloration.

    Also, he was born in Mesa, AZ, where I lived much of my life, and he taught art at UC Davis, where Mr. Suzanne attended.

  20. 20.

    trollhattan

    December 27, 2021 at 4:38 pm

    Good a place as any to note the passing of Sacramento’s beloved painter and teacher Wayne Thiebaud, who made it to 101 so clearly did many things right. Never met him but hung out with quite a few of his students, back in the day, and he was fundamental to their development as artists. Losing he and Joan Didion within a week has delivered quite the blow to the local psyche.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/obituaries/article256855612.html

    Waves to Suzanne.

  21. 21.

    debbie

    December 27, 2021 at 4:42 pm

    @Suzanne:

    Seconded.

  22. 22.

    Anyway

    December 27, 2021 at 4:44 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Surprise for me is how quickly these (red) states were able to make changes in laws re unemployment benefits. Keep hearing how slowly bureaucracy moves but here are changes happening as soon as the mandates kick in. I might be comparing apples and oranges and many red states have supremajorities in the state legislature — wonder if that plays a role.

  23. 23.

    West of the Rockies

    December 27, 2021 at 4:47 pm

    I’m not sure that new year’s resolutions work this way, but one of mine is that Tom Levenson write more at Balloon Juice!

  24. 24.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    December 27, 2021 at 5:01 pm

    @trollhattan: The only surprise is that Missouri hasn’t already done this.

  25. 25.

    Ohio Mom

    December 27, 2021 at 5:04 pm

    Only a little off-topic:
    A folktale from somewhere in Africa: the world was created when the ants formed themselves into a ball. The evidence is that everywhere you dig, there are ants.

  26. 26.

    raven

    December 27, 2021 at 5:15 pm

    A friend of mine works at the Yetz lab at Yale and is area is evolutionary biology and ants. Here’s his tribute

    The giant of the ant world Dr. E.O. Wilson is sadly no longer with us. The first time I met him  is the day I decided to go back to pursue my myrmecological career – it was that first conversation we had that inspired me to do this. I’ve already had a much more successful career studying ants than I ever imagined I would have at that time. Over the years I was lucky enough to get to meet with him several more times, receive positive emails about various work, and present my research to him in his office over lobster sandwiches. We spent a couple hours one day chatting about everything from ants of course to our family histories and it was then my science hero became a friend. His enthusiasm for hearing the smallest natural history tidbits about ant observations was just as large as his enthusiasm for high impact research publications – if not more so. That will always stick with me the most, how he was downright giddy to hear about when I collected and observed my favorite ant (Strumigenys filirrhina). He was very proud of being a southerner and we bonded over stories of growing up and being from the south. My greatest honor was reading him a letter from his advisor Bill Brown, who had written to him about discoveries of the genus of ants I study (and also Bill’s favorite ants) and he welcomed me into that part of his and Bill’s fellowship. He asked me how I pronounced the genus Strumigenys and he said that was how Bill pronounced the name as well and how he would pronounce it. I had been corrected for my pronunciation before that! I know many colleagues that have had very close friendships with Ed and are heartbroken. My condolences to them and the community he gave us, especially those that worked most closely with him in the ant room. He might have been the most positive and vibrant person I have ever met in science and a true giant lost to all.

  27. 27.

    Citizen Scientist

    December 27, 2021 at 5:16 pm

    I was really lucky to attend a ‘talk’ (more of an interview really) in 2019ish with EO and Jane Goodall talking mostly about the power of science and data analysis to help solve problems. The subtext was dealing with climate change and science communication. I’ll never forget being able to see two smart people casually discuss weighty topics without losing the audience. What a great lesson in science communication!

  28. 28.

    marklar

    December 27, 2021 at 5:50 pm

    @smith: I had dinner with him 20 years or so ago, and remembered him the same way.  I brought a copy of his book “Consilience” and he signed it by drawing an ant!

    I found his presentation of sociobiology a lot more humane and flexible than Dawkins’ works…indeed, I think at times people conflate the two, making Wilson seem more dogmatic than he actually was.

  29. 29.

    waynel140

    December 28, 2021 at 6:33 am

    Thank you all for the enlightenment, today. I like feeling smarter. As a Buddhist, I also liked E.O. Wilson.

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