E.O. Wilson’s Lifelong Passion For Ants Helped Him Teach Humans About How To Live Sustainably

TPM Article Topics
1

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared at The Conversation.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1399423
2

One of my favorite scientists with a drive to write clearly for the general public. RIP EO

2 Likes
3

I found myself explaining to a friend who Wilson was and called him “the Carl Sagan of biology”. On reflection I corrected myself and said that was wrong, Wilson’s contributions to his field far outweigh anything Sagan did. As a restoration ecologist it’s difficult for me to even imagine anything more fundamental and important than his development of island biogeography - it is perhaps the most important concept in ecology. He was a giant.

2 Likes
4

All ecosystems are islands. And the singularly human need to homogenize all them has brought about the sixth great extinction.

E.O. Wilson tried to communicate this to us with crisp, insightful prose and solid science, but there was also a hint of sadness in his writing and when he spoke on these topics. The metaphors contained in the behavior of social insects are lost to most social hominids…

1 Like
5

E.O. Wilson’s avuncular style masked a willingness to push the envelope and fight for what he believed was true; e.g., I’m sure some here will recall the uproar his book on sociobiology initiated as well as the ambition of his work on Consilience. I was never entirely persuaded by these latter efforts (though it did me good to wrestle with them) and what I remember most was his patent fascination with and affection for what he studied: not just the discipline but the objects of his attention, from ants to systems. Like Barbara McClintock and other groundbreaking biologists he was not just intellectually bold, he had a ‘feeling for the organism,’ a sense of its lived life and the astonishing variety inherent in its lineage and world.

1 Like
6

What a magnificent article on a magnificent human and scientist in whatever order your mind conjures up at a particular moment. Well done young man! I love nature documentaries and have watched several involving E.O. Admittedly the first time I noticed the listing of a show on ants, I hesitated, but boy if I see where one of those is coming I change my schedule. We can only hope more of us catch his bug before we lose our sustainable earth, the only one we’ll ever know.