Scientist: E.O. Wilson: A Life in Nature

by Richard Rhodes

A masterful, timely, fully authorized biography of the great and hugely influential biologist and naturalist E. O. Wilson, one of the most ground-breaking and controversial scientists of our time—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb

“An impressive account of one of the 20th century’s most prominent biologists, for whom the natural world is ‘a sanctuary and a realm of boundless adventure; the fewer the people in it, the better.’” — The New York Times Book Review

Few biologists in the long history of that science have been as productive, as ground-breaking and as controversial as the Alabama-born Edward Osborne Wilson. At 91 years of age he may be the most eminent American scientist in any field.

Fascinated from an early age by the natural world in general and ants in particular, his field work on them and on all social insects has vastly expanded our knowledge of their many species and fascinating ways of being. This work led to his 1975 book Sociobiolog y, which created an intellectual firestorm from his contention that all animal behavior, including that of humans, is governed by the laws of evolution and genetics. Subsequently Wilson has become a leading voice on the crucial importance to all life of biodiversity and has worked tirelessly to synthesize the fields of science and the humanities in a fruitful way.

Richard Rhodes is himself a towering figure in the field of science writing and he has had complete and unfettered access to Wilson, his associates, and his papers in writing this book. The result is one of the most accomplished and anticipated and urgently needed scientific biographies in years.

Genres: Biography, Science, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Biology, History, Nature

288 pages, Hardcover

Published November 9, 2021

About the author

Richard Lee Rhodes is an American journalist, historian, and author of both fiction and non-fiction (which he prefers to call "verity"), including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), and most recently, Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (2007). He has been awarded grants from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation among others.

He is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He also frequently gives lectures and talks on a broad range of subjects to various audiences, including testifying before the U.S. Senate on nuclear energy.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

American historian and author Richard Rhodes wrote the award winning book 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb' and later published 'Energy: A Human History.' Now Rhodes has branched out to biography again with this book about Edward Osborne Wilson (known as E.O. Wilson), a world-renowned American biologist, naturalist, and writer.


E.O. Wilson

Ever since I studied wasp taxonomy in graduate school, I've greatly admired the great ant taxonomist (among other things) E. O. Wilson. So I was happy to read this narrative about the famous scientist's life and work.


E.O. Wilson examining ants in the laboratory


E.O. Wilson observing ants in nature

For a deep dive into Wilson's scientific achievements, you'd have to read his books and articles. But if you just want to learn a bit about Wilson as a person - and get an overview of his contributions to science - this book, which is filled with fun personal details, is a good place to start.

E.O. Wilson, born in 1929, became interested in insects - especially ants - as a child. Despite being accidently blinded in one eye at age seven, Wilson was a seasoned researcher by his teens. Rhodes writes, "In a vacant lot in Mobile, Alabama, when Wilson was only 13 years old, he'd been the first collector in the United States to spot the invasion of the pestilential red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, transported from Argentina as a ship stowaway." So the great biologist was off to a good start!


Solenopsis invicta (red fire ant)


Teenage Eagle Scout E.O. Wilson was well on his way to becoming a scientist

Later, in Wilson's second year as a junior fellow at Harvard in the early 1950s, the biologist was invited to collect ants in the South Pacific for the Harvard Museum. During Wilson's trip he discovered many new ant species, demonstrating he was both far-seeing and lucky. Wilson noted, "At the time I entered college only about a dozen scientists around the world were engaged full-time in the study of ants. I had struck gold before the rush began. Almost every research project I began thereafter, no matter how unsophisticated (and all were unsophisticated) yielded discoveries publishable in scientific journals."

Rhodes provides a detailed description of Wilson's South Pacific ant collecting trip, during which the scientist gathered at least 1,000 species. In addition, Rhodes enlivens the narrative with snippets from Wilson's letters to his fiancée Irene. For example, about arriving in Fiji, Wilson wrote, "Never before or afterward in my life have I felt such a surge of high expectation - of pure exhilaration - as in those few minutes. I carried no high-technology instruments, only a hand lens, forceps, specimen vials, notebooks, quinine, sulfanilamide, youth desire, and unbounded hope."


Fiji rain forest


Insect collecting kit

And from natives on Fiji, Wilson learned the island's historic cannibals thought "human flesh was salty, not as tasty as pig."


Staged photo of cannibal feast

When Christmas rolled around, Wilson was in New Caledonia (a French collective) and Santa Claus was supposed to arrive by French submarine, but could only muster an old tugboat. Santa was greeted anyway by a crowd of more than a thousand people, "including many children and fascinated New Caledonian natives and Indochinese and Malayans."


In some traditions, Santa Claus arrives by boat

Later, on the island of Espiritu Santo Wilson marveled at the rainforest, with giant trees, gorgeous little parrots and pigeons, and flying foxes (giant fruit-eating bats) - considered a delicacy. When Wilson later tried eating flying fox he found it "gamy, tasting just about what you'd expect from bat meat" and could only swallow a few bites.


Espiritu Santo rain forest


Flying fox (giant fruit bat)


Flying fox is a delicacy in the South Pacific

Afterwards, in Australia, Wilson marveled, "What a country! Hundreds and hundreds of miles of rough little roads and byways without a habitation along them or even an advertising sign now and then, just tens of thousands of square miles of eucalypt forest and sandplain.


Australian outback

From Australia Wilson headed to New Guinea, "one of the last and greatest strongholds of stone-age man and the primeval forest and my premier destination on this trip." Wilson told Irene he expected the fieldwork in New Guinea to be "the most exciting of my life." And indeed it was. Among the more than 50 species of ants collected in New Guinea, Wilson found species that lived in silk bags hung from trees and army ant colonies with hundreds of thousands of workers. On the downside, there were "endless, enormous, aggressive, consuming hordes of mosquitoes that are after you every minute of the day."






Some ants from New Guinea


Wilson was attacked by hordes of mosquitoes in New Guinea

After more stops, Wilson returned to America, and later noted, "Finally, clad in khaki and heavy boots, crew-cut, twenty pounds underweight, and tinted faint yellow from the antimalarial drug quinacrine, I fell into [my fiancée] Renee's arms."

As a biologist who'd seen diverse fauna everywhere, Wilson was interested in the evolution of animals. In 1859, Charles Darwin proposed that biological evolution occurs as a result of natural selection, which is the idea that in any given generation, some individuals - who are slightly better adapted - are more likely to survive and reproduce than others.



We now know that these 'better adaptations' are controlled by DNA (genes), whose structure was described by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953.


James Watson (left) and Francis Crick with their model of DNA

Wilson wanted to study the kinds of processes that create biodiversity, and much of his work involved field studies like those he did in the South Pacific. Ironically, this put Wilson at odds with his fellow Harvard professor, DNA describer James Watson, who believed biology could be best pursued in the lab.


James Watson

At one point, Wilson wrote, "I found [Watson] the most unpleasant human being I had ever met....At twenty-eight, he was only a year older. He arrived with a conviction that biology must be transformed into a science directed at molecules and cells and rewritten in the language of physics and chemistry...His bad manners were tolerated because of the greatness of the discovery he had made." Rhodes writes a good deal about the epic rivalry between Wilson and Watson, which resulted in the division of biological studies at Harvard into the separate departments of molecular biology and evolutionary biology.

Wilson and Watson later became friends.

Rhodes describes Wilson's collaboration with other scientists and mathematicians; Wilson's studies of ant pheromones; Wilson's studies of populations and biogeography; Wilson's experiments related to repopulating denuded islands; Wilson's theories about altruistic behavior (sacrificing oneself so relatives with shared genes survive); Wilson's expansion into vertebrate biology; the brouhaha surrounding Wilson's publication of the book Sociobiology (this section is a humdinger!); Wilson's interest in hereditary influence on human behavior (also very controversial); Wilson's drive to catalogue ALL species on the planet; Wilson's efforts to conserve/restore natural habitats so species are protected; Wilson's books and other publications; and more.


Wilson's book Sociobiology resulted in backlash from some researchers

Perhaps appealing to human self-interest (if not love of nature), Wilson pleads for preserving species because, "Only a tiny fraction of species with potential economic importance has been used....A far larger number, tens of thousands of plants and millions of animals, have never even been studied well enough to assess their potential."



Wilson also developed theories about the evolution of social insects (like ants, bees and wasps) and describes some of their more dramatic behavior. Writing about the relentless sweep of Eciton burchelli (army ants) across a lowland forest in South America, Wilson wrote "they are a big conspicuous species that link themselves together around their mother queen in chains and nets that accumulate layer upon interlocking layer until finally the entire worker force - as many as 700,000 individuals - comprises a solid mass." Another ant specialist observed about an army ant horde, "For an Eciton burchelli raid nearing the height of its development in swarming, picture a rectangular body of 15 meters or more in width and 1 to 2 meters in depth, made of of many tens of thousands of scurrying reddish-black individuals....[which] bring disaster to practically all animal life that lies in their path and fails to escape."


Swarm of army ants

When Wilson retired from Harvard in 1996, he wanted to devote most of his time to his first love, the study of ants, and he continued to add to the field of myrmecology.


E.O. Wilson continued to study ants after retiring from Harvard


Ant collection

Wilson also continued his other work, and in 2014 the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Laboratory was opened in Mozambique. The facility offers long-term research and training in biodiversity documentation, ecology, and conservation biology to visiting researchers from both Mozambique and abroad.


E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Laboratory opens in Mozambique

Wilson has a good sense of humor as well. Asked "What do I do about the ants in my kitchen?" Wilson (half-seriously) replied, "Watch where you step. Be careful of the little lives. Feed them crumbs of coffeecake. They also like bit of tuna and whipped cream. Get a magnifying glass. Watch them closely. And you will be as close to any person may ever come to seeing social life as it might evolve on another planet."



In addition to being a great scientist, Wilson is a loving husband and father to his wife Irene and daughter Catherine. Now in his nineties, Wilson is still working and adding to his admirable legacy.


E.O. Wilson sitting in front of an anthill

I enjoyed the book and highly recommend it to readers interested in E.O. Wilson.

Thanks to Netgalley, Richard Rhodes, and Doubleday for a copy of the book.

You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com

[H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, to be a white man doing science in the 1950s. E.O. Wilson is hero worshipped, but what struck me about this biography was the implicit picture it painted of the people, especially women and grad students, who made him a hero. He flourished in a particular time and place: When promising white men had their potential nurtured to the utmost, extravagant research trips arranged for them, money thrown at them, exuberant recommendation letters written for them, offers of professorial positions sent to them without prompting.

Here's a depiction of his beginnings at university: A professor briefly speaks with Wilson, then says, "'Come with me.' [They] walked back into the newly opened research area that [the professor] was setting up. There was a row of cubicles, with a microscope at each one, a place for books, and so on. [The professor] walked over to one and pointed to it. 'That's your cubicle,' he said. The cubicles were for graduate students. The department chairman ... had ... recognized the newly arrived seventeen-year-old's ... potential and welcomed him to the community of scientists."

Whew. So much to unpack there. Navigating science seems much more difficult today, with fresh undergrads being much less likely to be suddenly handed graduate student resources, even while more is required of them than was of Wilson at that time. Wilson didn't have to learn calculus until he was 32. He relied on chemistry experts to do laboratory procedures that biology students today would never be admitted to grad school without knowing. It feels less was asked of him in exchange for resources that are pretty unthinkable today.

I had not fully registered how colonial Wilson's early career was, spent adoring Robert Oppenheimer and cavorting in the tropics amongst the natives, cheerily writing his wife back home that the Fijians "gave up cannibalism some time ago but still live rather primitively"; and imagining, in the most colonial of fashions, that nature was infinite and it wouldn't matter if he destroyed it in the pursuit of science.

Behind Wilson's success is a mostly invisible background of largely female labor, especially of his wife Irene, the homemaker, and his assistant and typist Kathy Horton. Richard Rhodes himself feels perfectly at home in this unrepentant boys club, and he inserts himself into the text as a Yale man clinking teacups with other powerful men at the Elizabethan Club. Rhodes is in the lucky position as a biographer to be constantly surrounded by accomplished men and even, as he points out, by senior biographers willing to give him their wisdom. The entire book oozes with privilege on both Wilson's and Rhodes's parts. I was completely unsurprised, after finishing this, to learn that of the many books Rhodes has written, all have featured men except for a memoir of his sexual escapades, Making Love, which has been derided as repugnantly misogynist.

All of these biases become interesting during the two chapters that cover Wilson's sociobiology controversy. His book introducing the subject set off a storm of accusations regarding racism and eugenics. I have not read Wilson's book on sociobiology, but what struck me more was Rhodes's childish defense of Wilson. Rhodes is quick to associate Wilson with a well-known quote of MLK's, and has the gall to claim that an insistence on the importance of genetics in shaping human behavior is somehow more in line with Martin Luther King's worldview than Marxist identity politics and leftist multiculturalism. (MLK became increasingly Marxist over time, and as early as 1958 was openly sympathetic to the ideology.) Rhodes writes, "Wilson's Southern liberal perspective was in fact closer to that of Martin Luther King, Jr., favoring integration within a harmonious community. ... Wilson was reviled by those ... in the multicultural camp precisely because he denied that there were significant multicultural differences to be preserved and honored between races and ethnicities." I have no opinion on sociobiology, but I found Rhodes's distasteful flinging about of "I Have a Dream" quotes and his obvious derision for the left an embarrassing defense of Wilson's most controversial views.

Throughout the book Rhodes's breezily sexist language ("Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Frey"; "...his new wife, Christine, ... the prize of a year's courtship."; etc.) left a bad taste in my mouth—although I enjoyed it, again, as an apt portrayal of the elitist community Wilson was working within. Rhodes is sour at accusations that Wilson was racist or sexist; yet it is inevitable that he was, because the systems all around him were. Wilson himself spoke about the racist culture he grew up in much more gracefully and intelligently than the sycophants who defend him.

This book can't be reduced to the sociobiology controversy. I greatly enjoyed how far-ranging it was. In fact the parts I most enjoyed had nothing to do with Wilson at all. What was more fascinating was this description, for example, of how ants avoid drowning during floods: "When the water reaches the nest chambers, the [ant] workers form a raft of their bodies. The whole colonial mass then floats safely downstream. When the ants contact dry land, they dissolve their live ark and dig a new nest."

I loved also the thorough history of 20th century science, in particular how kin selection theory was first formulated, and how difficult it was for the scientific community to grasp. It's fascinating to me that biology students today are expected to understand, within one or two school lectures, ideas that scientists of the recent past debated and struggled over for years.

Finally, I am very grateful that Rhodes took up the project of writing a biography on Wilson when he did. This book came out only shortly before Wilson passed, and how lucky it is for the world that Rhodes had conducted six months' worth of interviews with exactly no time to spare. Yet because this book was written while Wilson was alive, and Wilson read it before it was published, you can feel his presence lingering over Rhodes's shoulder as Rhodes writes. This is an impersonal biography, disproportionately focused on Wilson's work and on the history of science itself. There is ample room, therefore, for another biographer to write a more personal version of Wilson's life in the future.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve read about every book Richard Rhodes has written, starting with “The Making of the Atomic Bomb,” and I have to say this is the first that I really didn’t like that much.

Why?

It all boils down to the chapter on sociobiology and how much Rhodes gets wrong.

First, Rhodes appears to think that Wilson’s dad’s suicide note can be explained in terms of sociobiology. From how I read the chapter, that’s just Rhodes talking, not Wilson. And, it’s wrong in two ways. First, if one wants to be a greedy reductionist (hold on to that), then one would have to claim there’s genetic influence for suicide being genetically adaptive in kin-genetics in at least some cases. Do you really think that? Second, we have no evidence that Wilson’s dad’s suicide was actually intended to be altruistic.

Next, Rhodes stacks the deck in genetic heritability, citing hundreds of traits as noted by science journal Nature Genetics in "Meta-analysis of the Heritability of Human Traits Based on Fifty Years of Twin Studies." Several problems here, from least to greatest. First, Rhodes provides no URL in body text or footnote to this study. Second, it’s meta-analysis, with the issues that can have. Second, part two: Twin studies aren’t all they were once cracked up to be. Third, purely physiological traits like height are heritable at well more than 50 percent genetic influence; I suspect the average for psychological traits is closer to 40 percent. Anyway, neither of them is 100 percent or close to that. Anyway, I found the link. https://www.nature.com/articles/ng.32...

After that? Rhodes deck-stacks the opposition to Wilson by focusing on Lewontin and not Gould. Remember that “greedy reductionism” I mentioned above? Gould repeatedly (and rightly) also charged Dennett with that later on. And, Wilson deserves the same charge. In fact, although the word wasn’t really around in the 1970s, I’d charge Wilson, as well as Dennett, with “scientism.” Rhodes also doesn’t note that Gould and Lewontin jointly, just a year after Wilson wrote “On Human Nature,” introduced the concept of “spandrels.” He doesn’t discuss the concept or how this relates to Wilson’s work.

Fifth, the racism-related angle? These facts hadn’t been “hidden,” but had been ignored by many of Wilson’s defenders, but were brought back up after fawning obits by Carl Zimmer and others. Wilson DID, quite arguably, even if not racist himself, play footsie with racists, or rather, let’s say, with “scientific racialists,” namely J. Phillipe Rushton. And, Rushton’s not even mentioned in the book. Nor is a more modern critic of Wilson’s, Mary Midgley.

And, I am sure that Rhodes knows everything I wrote above. And, I haven’t even jumped into sociobiology’s bastard pseudoscience child, evolutionary biology.

And, I haven’t even mentioned the strawman that alleges that people who oppose Wilson, Dennett, Steve Pinker et al are “blank slaters.” And, others have noted that people who say Lewontin, especially, was attacking Wilson on political ground (including Wilson himself, who claimed that) were themselves committing an ad hominem.

==

The rest of the book is good enough, and the material related to sociobiology Wilson-style short enough, that I would personally give it 3 stars, not 2. But, it’s horribly overrated here, and needed a truly critical review, and star numbering, to offset that.

[The Inquisitive Biologist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weighted towards the first half of Edward O. Wilson's life, Scientist is a warm and respectful biography that focuses on his intellectual achievements. Read my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2022...

[Stetson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scientist: E. O. Wilson: A Life in Nature is a biography of Edward Osborne Wilson, a renowned biologist and naturalist who pioneered the fields of sociobiology and biodiversity conservation. The book, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes, covers Wilson’s life from his childhood in Alabama to his scientific expeditions around the world. The biography also explores Wilson’s formerly controversial ideas on human nature (that are now mainstream), evolution (not so much for group selection though), and social behavior, as well as his advocacy for preserving the natural world.

The book is based on extensive interviews with Wilson and his colleagues, friends, and family, as well as archival research and personal observations by Rhodes. It is a well-deserved tribute to Wilson’s remarkable achievements and contributions to science and society.

Wilson had many achievements and contributions in various fields of biology. He was the world’s leading authority on ants, especially their social behavior and evolution, making many incredible discoveries. This included the finding and naming of hundreds of new species that accompanied the publication of several books on myrmecology (the study of ants). He was the founding father of sociobiology, the study of the genetic basis of social behavior of all animals, including humans. This field is flourishing today despite its dogged critics, though it often goes by other names like neuroscience, behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology. However, the existence of these combination fields are fulfilling Wilson's other vision for the merger of all sciences, consilience. During his career, the sociobiology work sparked a lot of debate and controversy. He was especially poorly treated by his colleagues, including Richard Lewotin and Stephen Jay Gould. These two often let their radical political commitments drive unreasonable and inappropriate attacks against Wilson. As a conservation activist, Wilson advocated for preserving the natural habitats and species diversity of life on Earth, coining the term “biophilia” to describe the innate human affinity for nature. He also won two Pulitzer Prizes for his books The Ants (1990) and On Human Nature (1979), as well as many other awards and honors for his scientific work and writings.

Why was sociobiology so controversial? Well because it uprooted many of the myths we as social creatures believe about ourselves, such as that we're the masters of our destinies. Or when we're not the masters of our destinies, it is because powerful and discriminatory actors or forces are holding us back. But this is a sociopolitical narrative, not science. Sociobiology, on the other hand, is the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior. The premise of Sociobiology is that genes and biological factors (and their transmission through successful reproduction) are the primary influence on the behavior of all animals, including humans. This idea is a simple extension of evolutionary theory to animal behavior, asking how things like cooperation evolve. In many ways this preceded Wilson and would exist without him. It was more that he bravely championed these ideas into the human realm that so distinguished him. Of course, this framework is complicated when applied to the complex social organization (culture, ethics, religions, etc) of modern humans. However, the hard work of scientists from multiple disciplines has continued to fill in the picture along sociobiological lines.

Rhodes has crafted a lovely short biography of Wilson. All readers eager to learn about a brilliant and tenacious scientist should pick this one up.



I've written a longer piece on E. O. Wilson based on this book's content at Holodoxa on Substack

[Bill Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't resist buying this at the local B&N. Not only was it by one of my favorite biographers (Richard Rhodes), but it was about onee of my inspirations throughout my life as a biologist. I first became acquainted with E. O. Wilson as an undergrad at Berkeley. His population Biology book co authored with Bossert was required for a class. I studied it then and continued to use it throughout my teaching career. Next was the memorable semester at ISU where those of us enrolled in the advanced animal behavior class took on his new book "Sociobiology-the New Synthesis". Each week one or two grad students would dissect a chapter or two and we would discuss it. I remember beinng so impressed then and I still remember it. Along the way were Wilson's other books and with them another difficult biological area tackled. It was Human nature, or biodiversity or the future of the biological world. I could always count on E O Wilson to be expanding ideas in biology and who humans fit in.
So, Rhodes describes these biological breakthroughs and along the way describes Wilson's relationships with Harvard colleagues James Watson, Richard Lewontin and Steven Jay Gould. Wilson comes off as the scientist we all try to describe as science teachers for our students. It is "the Wilson Way" to quantify, test hypotheses, gather data etc. no matter how difficult. The experiments early in his career on the islands of the Florida Keys were amazing. Richard Rhodes makes the biologist into a real person. Exceptional, but real.
Right after I purchased the book E O Wilson passed away. He was 92 and lived the good life. He had a loving wife and daughter, and a career many would like to have but few possess the drive determination and love for that would take them to the pinnacle of their field. Wilson did and I feel my life is better because of the ideas he described and the model he was.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

It wasn't until I read this biography, admittedly written by sympathetic and incredibly talented friend, that I became comfortable with the notion of writing about people I knew and admired. It is possible. And, in the case of this book, very enjoyable, illuminating, and fair.

E.O. Wilson is one of those people you don't forget about once you become aware of him and his work. Both are inseparably bound, as Rhodes make clear, especially in recalling early years. Love him or hate him (something I can't imagine), Wilson elevated our view of ourselves by focusing on his fascination of ants of all kinds, everywhere in the world. There have been "academic" debates about whether he veered into determinism or mingled with the wrong people. Rhodes handles them well and convincingly explains how neither has anything to do with him, his work, or legacy.

If you're in the mood for a short, inspiring, thought-provoking read, this would be a good choice to consider. Or if you know a young adult who's thinking about science as a career.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I loved the experience of reading this, I thought It was a very light treatment overall and I'd like to read a posthumous biography one day. Agree with Socratic Gadfly's GR review on some of Rhodes's biases and omissions. Sociobiology was a dirty word when I was a biological anthropology student in the early 1990s, and so I wish Rhodes had done more to discuss the racism charges and the interesting "evolution" of sociobiology under other names in the social sciences today. But that's another book. 

[Geoffrey Hagberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is it: looking at Wilson through his work.
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Why 5 stars: two moments in this biography of E.O. Wilson stand out to me as telling something critical about both Wilson and the author, Richard Rhodes.

One is a brief digression late in the biography about the second time Wilson won a Pulitzer Prize, this time for his zoology textbook The Ants. Rhodes spends some time elaborating on this second win in part because Rhodes was one of the three jurors selecting that year's prize, was the one to advocate on behalf of The Ants and ultimately the one to lobby successfully for it to win. As related here in Scientist, Rhodes' advocacy on behalf of The Ants and Wilson is driven by a deep appreciation for the way science is communicated. Rhodes, having won a Pulitzer himself for his own writing about science, spends a portion of this biography urging his reader to recognize that Wilson deserves acclaim (even awe) not for writing "about" science but for writing science. That the way Wilson thinks and articulates his thoughts is itself of literary merit.

Rhodes spends this same section also emphasizing that this Pulitzer was a strange experience for Wilson, who had intended The Ants strictly as an educational text within a narrow field that was, at that late stage of his career, only a subset of the much broader scope and impact of his scientific work. For a man who reshaped biological studies, basically invented sociobiology and weathered some of the harshest resistance to it, and dedicated decades of work to promoting the protections of biodiversity and cataloguing of earth's species, The Ants is a return to the very first focus of his career--entomology and social insects. It suggests something about Wilson to have a career that reaches so broadly, gestures so widely, takes in so many and so vast systems, and yet to be capable even still of diving into a specific area of study and to understand and communicate about it so compellingly as to catch public attention there too.

It is a kind of thinking I personally admire most--to see the systems and the details simultaneously.

The second moment is earlier in the biography, near the midpoint, as Rhodes is unpacking Wilson's initial development of sociobiology as it applies to human behaviors. Wilson opens his first text on the subject, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, by addressing Albert Camus on the subject of suicide. Taken on its own, that introduction, or the content of later works like The Meaning of Human Existence or On Human Nature, might seem abstracted or even arrogant. To a degree, Wilson does seem to hold that scientific study is a necessary qualification for effective philosophy, and so does seem to consider himself better equipped to comment on human life and death than men like Camus. But Rhodes, here in Scientist reminds his reader that Wilson begins his work on sociobiology with the question of suicide not in the abstract. Rhodes reminds his reader of Wilson's father, who shot himself early in Wilson's life so as not to continue burdening his son with taking care of him. There's a sensitivity in Rhodes' writing about this that speaks volumes on behalf of Wilson. And there's a frankness too, because Rhodes recognizes that the initial question of Wilson's father's choice leads Wilson to pursue through science answers that can only be described as "tragic."

Wilson's philosophy is tragic, undeniably so but equally unflinchingly so. Rhodes cannot help but admire that Wilson is so committed to the scientific materialist worldview--so committed to the labor of it and the working it into as solid and stable and far-reaching a framework as he can; so committed to a life of doing science, of being a scientist, in all facets whether day-to-day or eon-to-eon--that he is led to an understanding of his own relationship with his father that would be difficult for others to come to terms with, yet an understanding that is so fundamental as the be the way Wilson leads his own readers into a study of sociobiology. For a field of study that would become so politically burdened, so caught up in so many complications of its implications for society, it means a lot to me to see Wilson as Rhodes sees him, pursuing science out of a compulsion that is as intimate as it is grand.

This too is a kind of thinking I admire, even if I have arrived at a different logic than Wilson's--to recognize that the largest scope of a worldview's logic hinges always upon the most personally important questions of relationship and purpose.

Published the year of Wilson's death but written during the last years of Wilson's life and including conversations between Rhodes and Wilson during that period, Scientist in many ways is not a typical biography. It spends time on Wilson's personal life and family only so far as is relevant context to clarify for the reader what Rhodes sees as the real focus: Wilson's work. It is, in these ways, a biography more of Wilson's career than of the man. And yet, these moments described above, and so many others throughout, are reminders to me that when examining the careers of great scientists, when looking at their work, we are seeing the person. Rhodes' biography of Wilson's career is an argument again and again that there is no better way to understand who Wilson was than to try to see the world as he did, which requires careful examination of the labor by which that worldview was crafted. And in so doing, we see not just the work but those intimate needs that drive it.
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You might also like: per my brother's recommendation, E.O. Wilson - Of Ants and Men

[John Everard Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book from the library on a recommendation in the New York Times. The biographer has done a brilliant job of describing the way Wilson's life evolved from being a biologist to becoming an international activist for saving the planet. Yet, remaining firmly rooted in his biological roots. Wilson was (he died a few weeks ago) a man who lived to be 90 and never retired from his life work - to add to our knowledge of 0ur planet and the world we live in. This is a story of a man and his work. It is also a story of a person who was open to new ideas; whose curiosity and commitment to understanding what is true; and demonstrating how that knowledge advances our evolution on this planet. It is a story of holding on to what one is on the brink of discovering in the face of conflict and how that leads to new integrations of the sciences. The books reveals how a fascination with ants lead to the development of new areas of inquiry and a merging of physical science and social science. The last chapter was such a great summary of E. O. Wilson's life.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book a bit dry at parts as it tells the story of the father of Sociobiology, EO Wilsons, but parts are just fascinating. I loved the stories about how he figured out how ants communicate and how animals go extinct and new species arrive at remote islands. He was certainly an impressive and impactful person in the our know of how animals behave

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dec.29.2021 Edit: Sad to hear just a couple weeks after reading this biography that Edward O. Wilson passed away. He definitely had a well lived life, and changed our understanding on ants and more.


This is a good introduction to Edward O. Wilson’s work. Wilson was a highly productive, intelligent scientist whose initial focus was on the ant world. Later he expanded into other species, ecology and humans. When he wrote a textbook on sociobiology things got controversial. People started protesting him and his work, lecturing and attending conferences became difficult due to the protests and anger people directed at him.

The book covers some of his personal life, particularly growing up and a bit about his wife. Shortly after being engaged Wilson had an opportunity of exploration that he couldn’t pass up, so they parted and wrote each other letters, which many of the early chapters drew on.

There is too much in this man’s life to cover in detail at all phases, that would require a very long book, if not volumes. Wilson himself has written over 30 books, many bestsellers and several textbooks, and hundreds of scientific papers. This book feels like just the beginning of covering Wilson’s life. There is so much more to explore.



Thanks to DoubleDay Books and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

[Ula Tardigrade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edward O. Wilson, who sadly passed away this December, was a great thinker and one of the most influential figures in natural science. His voice will be missed. But thankfully anyone who wants to know him better can read this thorough biography. The book is very detailed and maybe not the best choice for someone who hasn't heard about Wilson – but if you have followed his work and read his books, you will find many interesting insights here.

Thanks to the publisher, Doubleday Books, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a fan of E. O. Wilson so I was anticipating an absorbing biography. Although it did improve the first few chapters added nothing to the information you would have gathered in Wilson's memoir, Naturalist. It picked up as Rhodes began to put Wilson in context of scientic developments in the 50's and early 60's. These evaluations put things in perspective. But, as others here have noted, there are a number of cringe-worthy elements. Particularly the final chapter which is just embarrassing, and a decent editor should have put the digital equivalent of a red pen through it. There is room for a much better scientific biography. I gave three stars as the book did actually clarify some issues for me - and Wilson is/was one of the greatest.

[Drea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holy moly - who knew? This book is the reason I love reading. I had never heard of E.O. Wilson and when I stated reading I didn’t know if this book was for me - but I kept reading - and am so glad I did. What a fascinating person! This book is compelling in the way it’s written and I learned things I never knew - which I loved. I recommend this book and am grateful to Doubleday for giving me an advanced copy.

[Hannah Hethmon · Rating 2 out of 5]

As someone interested in ecology and environmental conservation, I have seen so many quotes from EO Wilson over the years. So I was looking forward to finally learning more about him. Unfortunately, from the start, this book was exclusively hagiography (a word drawn from religious biographies of saints). Everything EO Wilson did, the biographer Rhodes describes in glowing terms with no nuance. 170 pages in, I knew a lot about ants, but very little about Wilson other than that he probably farted rainbows.

The real kicker for me came when Rhodes starts alluding to controvesry around the publication of Wilson's book on "sociobiology," discipline he founded. Rhodes does not do any work to explain what critics found so upsetting about Wilson's work and views that they aggressively protested his lectures; he starts defending Wilson before he lays out any charges. In fact, he starts by saying the initial critics were "jealous" of Wilson's success, then that the attacks were "Political" and then hints at the criticism by saying Wilson's critics were advocates of multiculturalism whereas Wilson's beliefs were–get this–more like MLK Jr's. (and Rhodes summarized MLK's beliefs in one sentences as all races getting along without any differences noted between them). I had to put down the book and do some online reading to learn anything about WHY Wilson was protested and called racist, Nazi, facist. What I learned painted a complicated picture--albeit one that includes frequent correspondence and connection between Wilson and notorious white supremacist/racial science types.

I'm coming away from this book feeling like I need to find another biography because Rhode's hagiographic approach has left me suspicious of everything I've just read. No one is perfect. I would have much rather read a book about a clearly brilliant and pioneering scientist who was also a flawed and complicated human than a book about a genius who, though raised in Alabama pre-civil rights, was somehow never bad or wrong or ever had a racist bone in his body.

Besides, has a hagiography ever been an enjoyable read? The writing was dull, dry, and better fit for a glowing obituary than a true exploration of such an influential academic.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly chronological recap of Wilson's scientific career, coming out of family tragedy (his father's suicide, shortly after Wilson declined the father's request to come home and take care of parents instead of going on for a PhD) and moving thru the various phases (ant naturalist, sociobiology theorist, biodiversity eco-activist) of his research preoccupations.

Wilson was obviously a genius, and some of the academic science politics stuff was interesting -- i'd heard/read of the public drama around sociobiology such as someone's making the point that they considered Wilson's work and himself racist by.........dumping ice water on his head and chanting that he was "all wet" (may have sounded more clever in the planning phase), but I hadn't realized that he had a long-running fight within Harvard biology dept. between evolutionary biologists and molecular biologists led by James Watson.

Evidently he and Watson hated each other, though became friendlier eventually. I guess not too amazing for co-big-deals who started in the department at same time, and Wilson outraced him to tenure via the classic tactic of getting another offer [from Stanford, so not implausible that he might have left].

Anyway, it all moves along well, and as a non-natural scientist I appreciated that the author kept it superficial enough that I could follow easily. Only downside to me is that in every controversy he takes Wilson's side without providing much depth as to why. You could come away from this with the impression that anybody critical of, particularly, sociobiology claims was just sort of a jerk who pointlessly wished to give Wilson a hard time and was unwilling to look at facts. There's some of that for sure but also more serious and credible arguments that could have used more attention here.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This biography (which came out a few months before Wilson passed away) is about the famed scientist beginning with the hardscrabble, itinerant life of a boy in Alabama whose only constant growing up was the beck and call of nature just outside his door. Even as a child he excavated ant hills in vacant lots to study how the insects lived, the precocious young man even talked his way into working in a graduate level lab when he was a college freshman -- but as a professor at Harvard, realizing his lack of math learning was holding him back, he enrolled in a calculus class with some of his own biology students becoming his calculus classmates.

So many folks when they become and expert in an area seem to want to drill down and get every crumb of knowledge in the field, but Wilson was one who always looked broader to see what his learning meant in a bigger sense. On long voyages to gather specimens he would read the classics and humanities, which would lead to him seeing parallels in the social lives of insects and other animals as well as humans which led this his writing about Sociobiology. And seeing the rapid acceleration of modern species extinction brought about by agriculture he saw the need for conservation and biodiversity on a global level -- including his idea to start the Encyclopedia of Life an online catalog of every living thing on Earth.

Fascinating book and I learned a lot!

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was well researched and well written to a degree but starts to fall apart at chapter 8 when the author starts to reveal his biases (or perhaps lack of attention) while attempting to discuss challenges to Wilson's work. It's not just that he basically adopts Wilson's position as his own regarding critiques to sociobiology (not really leaving room for any aspects of Wilson's theories to be wrong or incomplete or worth challenging), but that he presents the dispute so thinly in his book--rather than clearly explaining to the reader why the sociobiologists' position might have been right, he relies on cheap adjectives and unsupported conclusory statements to carry his point (like throwing around words like radical or harassments to describe people who disagreed with one of Wilson's books). At one point, students protesting for two minutes at a conference are reduced to violent attackers. At another, he urges the reader to reject critiques of sociobiology by throwing out the assertion that Wilson's own beliefs are basically equivalent to MLK Jr's, as exemplified in his I Have a Dream speech... This kind of writing suggests that the author didn't bother to fully engage with or understand the criticisms he attempts to write about, but only wanted to write about them as a good versus evil spectacle to be dismissed out of hand.

I enjoyed many chapters of this book (particularly the chapters on biodiversity) but found others cringe inducing.

[Jim Folger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Rhodes has done a marvelous job in capturing the totality of E.O. Wilson’s 89 years of a life in nature. Wilson discovered an early love for nature that saved him from a particularly difficult childhood where his mother and father divorced, and he attended 14 different public schools before graduating from high school in Alabama. In the sixth grade he became fascinated with ants and decided he wanted to be an entomologist. One has to admire the dedication of someone whose insatiable, inquisitive mind led him to understand the trails of pheromones left by fire ants.

Wilson’s admission to Harvard and his subsequent studies resulted in a career in evolutionary biology. What made him so special was his open mind that led him to exploring ecology, bio-geography, sociobiology, and ultimately into trying to preserve the unknown species on our planet. He is know as the Father of Biodiversity.

Nicholas Wade, a science writer for the New York Times said it well, and I paraphrase: “Wilson might have ended up as an obscure expert on ants in Alabama. But at each stage of his career he looked outward to see how his scholarly work might fit into the larger scheme of things.”

Before you read any of the 34 books E.O. Wilson wrote, I recommend reading this wonderful synopsis of his life.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

E. O. Wilson's name pops up all the time in stuff I'm reading but I knew very little about him beyond that he was the "ant guy." This is an interesting read because it turns out there is a lot to admire about Wilson and his career as a scientist. He is a lifelong learner and great synthesizer of information. However there are things about him that are problematic (e.g. he ends up friends with James Watson late in their working relationship after years of being antagonistic colleagues) and he's a little too hard on the fields of anthropology and sociology in my opinion. I'll need to do some follow up reading to see how much the criticisms of him are valid, but I admire his desire to preserve species and catalog them. He, like Jane Goodall, has become a strong advocate for environmentalism and uses his "celebrity status" as a scientist to encourage preservation. He seems kind of goofy, which I like. Zombie ants (in reverse) is a hysterical story and naming a species of ants after Harrison Ford shows his appreciation of how the arts can help generate interest in the natural world. Worth a read to gain understanding of this giant in the natural sciences. Time to go explore the Encyclopedia of Life!

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a gift to me from a grandson and introduced me to a scientist who I knew in name only. Richard Rhodes is a gifted biographer and he brings Wilson to life. Wilson had a tough childhood but fell in love with the natural world at a young age, and was particularly fascinated by ants. With no hope of parental support for college he tried to enroll in the army but was rejected because childhood had left him with one eye and impaired hearing. Instead he applied to the University of Alabama, thinking he could manage to earn his way somehow. He arrived at age 17 with a plan to study all the insects of his home state, Mississippi. He went to the department chairman to explain this, thinking this was what one did on entering college. The department chairman listened, and proceeded to introduce him to a young professor: After hearing his story, the professor said "Come with Me." "We walked back into the newly opened research area that he was setting up. There was a row of cubicles, with a microscope at each one...he walked over to one and pointed to it. 'That's your cubicle' he said. The cubicles were for graduate students, but the department chairman and the professor both recognized the newly arrived seventeen-year-old's commitment and potential and welcomed him to the community of scientists." At time of his death in 2021, Wilson may have been the most eminent American scientist in any field.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a person who is totally usually unaware of science, its developments or who studies it, I was so surprised to read all of this book as it chronicled the scientific life. of Ed Wilson. What a man of interesting studies, travel and commitment! From boy scouting to ant identification and life studies, to moving on to animals that have bones, including humans, to proposing a new field, that of social biology, to pushing worldwide efforts to save the diversity of the planet, this was a fascinating biography. I was surprised to find myself even reading it and more surprised to read it thoroughly to the end. I suppose that was prompted by a morning on Safari when a guide drew my attention to observe a group of ants and what they were doing for 10 or 15 minutes. I was told "They might sting if I got too near them", and then found that their underground territory stretched far and wide below the surface of the dirt. It was an awakening about unnoticed life and a call to find out more about what was going on around me.

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was thoroughly engrossed in this story about the evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson. Disclosure: I am a fan of Wilson and especially his work on biodiversity in the latter part of his long career. Rhodes was especially effective in describing the science and the scientific/academic communities. This version of attacks on his theories was intriguing to me (especially in light of current conditions in academia today). I am keen to learn more about how anthropology (as a discipline) responded to his work on sociobiology (not all that well, on the whole). I think that Wilson was one of the most important scientific thinkers of this era (he died in December), and I'm grateful that Rhodes has captured him this way. This is an important, thoughtful telling of the life and work of an important scientist and thinker. And I am inspired to reread Biophilia and Consilience, and to get my hands on some of his (many!) other works, including The Ants, Naturalist, and Half-Life. He was shockingly prolific.

[Joab Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Famed naturalist Edward O. Wilson led a full life, largely doing what he loved. A childhood fascination with ants led him to be the first person to discover on U.S. soil the invasive fire ants, in a vacant lot in Mobile Alabama. They had come from Brazil by the way of Argentina. His interest would take him to search for new species in far-flung locales as Caledonia and Espiritu Santo. When he arrived at Harvard he was as a self-taught prodigy and had to take courses in basic biology. He started teaching there the same time as famed co-discover of the DNA double helix structure James Watson joined, and subsequently the two became rivals. Watson lead a new wave of molecular biologists while Wilson argued for evolutionary biology, which focused more on field work, opposing Watson's emphasis on laboratory-based research. Later Wilson would go on to be a vocal proponent of global conservation of biodiversity. Another solid science biography from Richard Rhodes.

[Jason Stehly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book brought me back to the science of my childhood in two ways.
First, there was the actual science of E.O. Wilson the science of ants and my childhood. the "hard" western science now steeped in philosophy, that led to my fascination with the world. It has been much maligned an even vilified (and not without good reason) but it is still my roots and so I found it inspiring.
Second was the debate over Wilson's sociobiology. This section of the book had me reading articles letters and the Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy. In the end I managed a conclusion of sorts but I won't burden anyone with my conclusion rather encourage the process of forming one. This has sparked a sense of creativity and purpose back in my teaching in a time where things seem overwhelming and sad I think I have my feet back on solid ground thanks to this reminder.

[Les Hopper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've enjoyed a couple of E.O. Wilson's books this year, so decided to pick up this fairly recent biography of him to get a better idea of his career.

It's fairly short but has good depth around the controversial work which resulted from his ability to find links between fields and synthesise them (notably his feud with Watson and his creation of Sociobiology to link the humanities to biology).

It certainly left me wanting to read more of Wilson's 'popular' books, and drove a brief holiday daydream about changing directions in life to become a biologist! :-)

In other areas it is perhaps a little light, but for that I plan to pick up a copy of Wilson's autobiography at some point in the hope that the two are good companions to one another.

Recommended!

[Scott Buchanan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A warm and interesting biography of one of my scientific heroes. Rhodes obviously had a great deal of affection and respect for Wilson. However, I think it his attempt to be balanced, Rhodes undersells some of the monumental discoveries and theories that Wilson made and developed. Wilson’s work led to a complete restructuring of the biological sciences and how they are practiced and taught and I felt that Rhodes didn’t always give the man the credit he is due. There’s a fine line between biography and hagiography and it can be an difficult one to walk. I feel that Rhodes may have been a little too conservative in his approach but he still produced a great work of a great scientist.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5+
What a life this man had! It was long and filled with discovery, controversy, acclaim, and a family he loved. I've heard long interviews with E. O. Wilson and simply adored him. Richard Rhodes presents him here in an engaging biography which I thoroughly enjoyed. We recently lost Ed Wilson who was in this 90s and still engaged in science and the preservation of our rapidly vanishing biodiversity.

A life well-lived and told with skill by this author.

[Dayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

E. O. Wilson has been on my list of scientists “To Discover” when I read a small article about his work in Africa in a “Best Science Articles” 2014. Everyone in the class seemed to know E. O. Wilson already.

The author Richard Rhodes does a wonderful job of bringing Wilson’s story to a place where the reader gets to know a scientist who dared greatly; who never remained discouraged; and who always wanted to learn more.