I had the good fortune of spending a lot of time with E. O. Wilson, who recently passed away at the age of 92. Wilson was a towering figure who proposed grand ideas about biology and conservation, not just in scientific papers but in numerous books, some winning Pulitzer Prizes, that stood out for their outstanding writing.
In understanding the thread of Wilson’s career, it is important to recognize that—like any high-profile research—his work was debated and sometimes criticized by other scientists. It’s an oversimplification to say that Wilson was suddenly attacked because of the political implications of sociobiology. The controversy was part of the larger scientific debate that extends to behavioral genetics to this day.
Ed’s discipline as a writer always amazed me. I once asked him how he got the determination to crank out so much fantastic prose. “I guess I’ve always been a writer,” he said. “Southerners are storytellers, and I’ve always looked on scientific discoveries as stories. I mean, they’re factual, but what happens to lead up to them, what ideas are embodied when you make them, what the consequences are—those are stories, and I’ve always had a great pleasure in telling the stories of science.
In the weeks following Wilson’s death, many of these debates have been rekindled. That’s what he would have wanted. He loved science and batting around big ideas—he lit up when he got to do so. The human drama, positive and negative, of a life like Ed Wilson’s is an asset to science and something to celebrate. Let’s not lose our sense of wonder about that.
hholdenthorp We must remember how everyone was against him in the beginning… oh but the story always changes once success is involved.
hholdenthorp 'Ed was always asking new questions. Not all of them paid off. Those that did changed biology.' Read the ScienceRetrospective on Edward O. Wilson by Stuart Pimm:
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