Edward Osborne Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard, is the guiding force that shapes the mission of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation.
You can reach Dr. Wilson directly at:
Edward O. Wilson
Harvard University
Museum of Comparative Zoology
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge MA 02138-2902
e-mail: ewilson@oeb.harvard.edu
http://eowilsonfoundation.org/e-o-wilson/
Copyright 2013, E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation
Our Mission:
The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation is shaped by the inspiration and guidance of Edward O. Wilson, who has been named one of the century’s leading environmentalists by both Time and Audubon Magazine. A Professor Emeritus at Harvard, E.O. Wilson is the greatest living scientist of our time. As a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and winner of over 100 awards, Wilson speaks about the urgent need for broader research and understanding of our biodiverse planet in order to protect key species and avoid unintended destruction of the ecosystems that sustain our lives. Wilson warns, “The loss of a keystone species is like a drill accidentally striking a power line. It causes lights to go out all over.” The inadvertent degradation of the natural world can be slowed, or even halted, however, through biodiversity research that expands our understanding of our ‘little known planet’ and that innovates in helping us to learn how to best care for it.
The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation’s mission is to foster a knowing stewardship of our world through biodiversity research and education initiatives that promote and inform worldwide preservation of our biological heritage. We believe that by enhancing our public understanding of biodiversity, we can foster a culture of stewardship in which people are inspired to conserve and protect the natural world.
We aim to foster a new generation of enthusiastic explorers, environmental policy makers, and informed citizens that celebrate and conserve the biological richness of nature as a treasure to be passed on. Our innovative education initiatives include short video productions, social media, live events, literature and art. Among our projects is E.O. Wilson’s Life on Earth, a pioneering digital biology textbook for high school students. By utilizing the power of interactivity and animation, this iBook is set to revolutionize the way that students learn and retain information about the living world. While covering the full range of biology topics, Life on Earth also documents the ecological restoration of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique and uses this “living experiment” to foster a better understanding of the diversity and fragility of all of life on Earth, and why it must be conserved.
Through a partnership with the Gorongosa Restoration Project, the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation will bring the work of scientists from the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Laboratory at Gorongosa National Park into the public eye through a progressive communication strategy that connects scientists with the general public in their homes, museums, and schools.
The 2016 National Park Service Centennial has created a unique impetus for biodiversity research and education initiatives here in the U.S. The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation is actively working with the National Park Service (NPS) on these initiatives, including stewardship of a program that provides mentorship to NPS Biodiversity Youth Ambassadors across our National Parks. In an exciting new initiative, we are joining stakeholders from the Alabama environmental conservation community to develop a plan to celebrate the unique biodiversity of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta through its designation as a National Park unit.
Our projects drive toward a culture of stewardship in which people are inspired to conserve and protect. Please join us in our work by making a tax-deductible contribution. We are public charity, and depend upon your donation for our support.
Or send checks (payable to E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation) to:
E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation
Environment Hall
9 Circuit Drive
Box 90328
5th Floor, Room 5101
Durham, NC 27708
All photographs, texts, videos, and other artwork appearing on this website are © 2013 by the respective artists or authors.
E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation
Environment Hall
9 Circuit Drive
Box 90328
5th Floor, Room 5101
Durham, NC 27708
All photographs, texts, videos, and other artwork appearing on this website are © 2013 by the respective artists or authors.
Edward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist (Myrmecology, a branch of entomology), researcher (sociobiology, biodiversity), theorist (consilience, biophilia), and naturalist (conservationism). Wilson is known for his career as a scientist, his advocacy for environmentalism, and his secular humanist ideas concerned with religious and ethical matters. A Harvard professor for four decades, he has written twenty books, won two Pulitzer prizes, and discovered hundreds of new species. Considered to be one of the world's greatest living scientists, Dr. Wilson is often called "the father of biodiversity," (a word that he coined). He is the Pellegrino University Research Professor, Emeritus 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. See less Videos E.O. Wilson on the 'Knockout Gene' that Allows Mankind to Dominate Earth 08:30 E.O. Wilson: Synthetic Biology Will Radically Change the World 06:23 Pheromones and Other Stimuli We Humans Don't Get, with E.O. Wilson 07:28 E.O. Wilson on the Importance of Biodiversity 08:00 E.O. Wilson: What Does E.T. Really Look Like? 12:44 Related Content Edward O. Wilson E.O. Wilson: Synthetic Biology Will Radically Change the World 06 min 23 sec Over a year ago Share Edward O. Wilson E.O. Wilson: What Does E.T. Really Look Like? 12 min 44 sec Over a year ago Share Edward O. Wilson Pheromones and Other Stimuli We Humans Don't Get, with E.O. Wilson 07 min 28 sec Over a year ago Share Edward O. Wilson E.O. Wilson on the 'Knockout Gene' that Allows Mankind to Dominate Earth 08 min 30 sec Over a year ago Share
Shared publicly - Apr 23, 2012
Here’s my summary of a talk last night by Edward O. Wilson on the subject of his revolutionary new book, The Social Conquest of Earth...
The Real Creation Story (Edward Wilson talk)
“History makes no sense without prehistory,“ Wilson declared, “and prehistory makes no sense without biology.” He began by noting that every religion has a different creation story, all of them necessarily based on ignorance of what really happened in the past. Religions thus can’t give valid answers on the meaning of life---Gauguin’s questions: “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” Philosophy gave up on the questions long ago. The task was left to science, and from science a valid, shareable creation story is now emerging.
For the last 65 million years Earth has been dominated by eusocial animals. Ants, termites, and bees in some areas make up half of all biomass. Yet only a few of the million known insect species made the jump to eusociality. One variety of mammal, a tiny set of primates, made a similar jump. Once they began to use their eusocial skills to fan out from Africa 60 thousand years ago, they gradually became far more dominant even than the social insects. “The term ‘eusocial,’“ Wilson said, “means a society based in part on a division of labor, in which individuals act altruistically, that covers two or more generations, and that cares for young cooperatively.”
That eusociality is so rare suggests how difficult it is for altruistic traits to evolve. The powerful evolutionary force to make individuals that successfully reproduce has to be overcome by some form of selective pressure which generates altruistic individuals who yield their interests to the interests of the group. How does that occur? Examining near-eusocial species like African wild dogs and snapping shrimp along with primitively eusocial species like sweat bees shows that a crucial step appears to be made when multiple generations linger to defend a constructed nest with valuable access to food. That step can be made with a simple change to a single behavioral gene, silencing the trait for normal dispersal of young to carry out their own independent reproduction. When the young linger to defend the nest and begin to provide for the next generation of young, eusociality begins.
All eusocial species appear to have arisen from multi-generational nest defense. Two million years ago our ancestors began using fire for campsites and cooking. At the same time hominid brain size began expanding dramatically. Social traits emerged that have characterized humanity ever since. We love joining groups, and we became geniuses at reading the intentions of each other, a skill we fine-tune incessantly with our enjoyment of gossip. In another distinctively human trait, like ants, we became highly adept at collaborative warfare.
Wilson had long been a proponent of William Hamilton’s theory of “kin selection” as an explanation for how altruistic traits could evolve. But as a naturalist he found it did not explain phenomena that he and others were discovering in eusocial species, and he began to favor “group selection” instead---a process where the “target” of evolution was sacrificially collaborative traits, because highly cooperative groups beat poorly cooperative groups, and the “units” of evolution (genes) adjusted accordingly. It is successful groups, more than successful families, that are being selected for. In 2010 Wilson, along with mathematician Martin Nowak and Corina Tarnita formally challenged kin selection with a peer-reviewed paper in Nature. There was, as Wilson put it, “considerable blowback” from kin selection theorists and supporters.
Wilson’s alternative he calls “multi-level selection,” where individual selection and group selection proceed together (with kin selection a continuing bit player). In our eusocial species, that mix of traits makes us “permanently unstable, permanently conflicted” between selfish impulses and cooperative impulses. We negotiate these conflicts endlessly within ourselves and with each other. Wilson sees inherent adaptive value in that constant negotiation. Our vibrant cultural life may be driven in part by it.
In response to a question about what the next stages of human eusociality might be, Wilson said he hoped for a fading of interest in end-state ideologies and end-time religious creation stories because they so fervently deny negotiation.
The Real Creation Story (Edward Wilson talk)
“History makes no sense without prehistory,“ Wilson declared, “and prehistory makes no sense without biology.” He began by noting that every religion has a different creation story, all of them necessarily based on ignorance of what really happened in the past. Religions thus can’t give valid answers on the meaning of life---Gauguin’s questions: “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” Philosophy gave up on the questions long ago. The task was left to science, and from science a valid, shareable creation story is now emerging.
For the last 65 million years Earth has been dominated by eusocial animals. Ants, termites, and bees in some areas make up half of all biomass. Yet only a few of the million known insect species made the jump to eusociality. One variety of mammal, a tiny set of primates, made a similar jump. Once they began to use their eusocial skills to fan out from Africa 60 thousand years ago, they gradually became far more dominant even than the social insects. “The term ‘eusocial,’“ Wilson said, “means a society based in part on a division of labor, in which individuals act altruistically, that covers two or more generations, and that cares for young cooperatively.”
That eusociality is so rare suggests how difficult it is for altruistic traits to evolve. The powerful evolutionary force to make individuals that successfully reproduce has to be overcome by some form of selective pressure which generates altruistic individuals who yield their interests to the interests of the group. How does that occur? Examining near-eusocial species like African wild dogs and snapping shrimp along with primitively eusocial species like sweat bees shows that a crucial step appears to be made when multiple generations linger to defend a constructed nest with valuable access to food. That step can be made with a simple change to a single behavioral gene, silencing the trait for normal dispersal of young to carry out their own independent reproduction. When the young linger to defend the nest and begin to provide for the next generation of young, eusociality begins.
All eusocial species appear to have arisen from multi-generational nest defense. Two million years ago our ancestors began using fire for campsites and cooking. At the same time hominid brain size began expanding dramatically. Social traits emerged that have characterized humanity ever since. We love joining groups, and we became geniuses at reading the intentions of each other, a skill we fine-tune incessantly with our enjoyment of gossip. In another distinctively human trait, like ants, we became highly adept at collaborative warfare.
Wilson had long been a proponent of William Hamilton’s theory of “kin selection” as an explanation for how altruistic traits could evolve. But as a naturalist he found it did not explain phenomena that he and others were discovering in eusocial species, and he began to favor “group selection” instead---a process where the “target” of evolution was sacrificially collaborative traits, because highly cooperative groups beat poorly cooperative groups, and the “units” of evolution (genes) adjusted accordingly. It is successful groups, more than successful families, that are being selected for. In 2010 Wilson, along with mathematician Martin Nowak and Corina Tarnita formally challenged kin selection with a peer-reviewed paper in Nature. There was, as Wilson put it, “considerable blowback” from kin selection theorists and supporters.
Wilson’s alternative he calls “multi-level selection,” where individual selection and group selection proceed together (with kin selection a continuing bit player). In our eusocial species, that mix of traits makes us “permanently unstable, permanently conflicted” between selfish impulses and cooperative impulses. We negotiate these conflicts endlessly within ourselves and with each other. Wilson sees inherent adaptive value in that constant negotiation. Our vibrant cultural life may be driven in part by it.
In response to a question about what the next stages of human eusociality might be, Wilson said he hoped for a fading of interest in end-state ideologies and end-time religious creation stories because they so fervently deny negotiation.
Richard Dawkins has a review: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/edward-wilson-social-conquest-earth-evolutionary-errors-origin-species/
Unsurprisingly, it's not complimentary. I'm still digesting both the
review, and Wilson's talk; I will shortly start the book.
I read years ago that the great event in biology in the 1920s and 1930s was the neo-Darwinian synthesis. According to the account I read, prior to that synthesis, two big ideas (Mendelian genetics and Darwinian natural selection) had been seen as competing explanations, with partisans on both sides. The synthesis showed that the two ideas were not opposed, but could be combined to form a stronger theory than either alone.
I wonder if a similar synthesis is possible for Dawkins' and Wilson's views.
I read years ago that the great event in biology in the 1920s and 1930s was the neo-Darwinian synthesis. According to the account I read, prior to that synthesis, two big ideas (Mendelian genetics and Darwinian natural selection) had been seen as competing explanations, with partisans on both sides. The synthesis showed that the two ideas were not opposed, but could be combined to form a stronger theory than either alone.
I wonder if a similar synthesis is possible for Dawkins' and Wilson's views.
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