Edward O. Wilson is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and Harvard research professor emeritus and has pioneered seminal works in evolution of social behavior and organization; and a commitment to conservation that has shaped the face of science, philosophy, ethics and activism for more than a half century.
Who does he admire? Charles Darwin, whose audacious ideas on natural selection, evolution, and the nature of human origins turned a Victorian public and scientific establishment on its collective ear.
On Nov. 4, Wilson will kick off Arizona State University’s Darwinfest, a series of events and speakers that will tap into what Darwin set in motion when he stepped outside of the box 150 years ago to publish “On the Origin of Species.” Wilson will speak about “Darwin and the Future of Science” at 7 p.m. at the Tempe Center for the Arts.
Wilson terms Darwin a “revolutionary” who challenged the social and cultural fabric of his time. But the Darwinian legacy is as much reviled as revered, and this concerns Wilson, as it gets closer to this grand old man of evolutionary fame’s 200th birthday. The debate about evolution in the public realm, unlike in scientific circles, is far from over.
As Wilson writes: “The revolution in astronomy begun by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543 proved that Earth is not the center of the universe, nor even the center of the solar system. The revolution begun by Darwin was even more humbling: it showed that humanity is not the center of creation, and not its purpose either. But in freeing our minds from our imagined demigod bondage, even at the price of humility, Darwin turned our attention to the astounding power of the natural creative process and the magnificence of its products.”
Darwin’s four best known works are: “Voyage of the Beagle” (1845), “On the Origin of Species” (1859), “The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex” (1871), and “Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals” (1872). Before thinking it’s all dusty old concepts, the bold ideas that Darwin laid bare before an astonished public has deeply influenced philosophy and laid ground work for modern medical discoveries and research in psychology. There is not a single field in biology that is not affected by Darwinian evolutionary theory. Darwinian concepts have even been adopted in economics, technology and engineering.
So why should people with daily concerns peel themselves away from the television set to attend Wilson’s lecture, especially on what will likely prove the most exciting nights in recent political history? Because, like Darwin, Wilson has wrought fundamental change in the world, and he has a message of hope – regardless of what side of the political spectrum one falls on – that each of us can be instrumental in preserving our planet or “The Creation,” as Wilson terms Earth, without irony.
Wilson has spent considerable time building bridges between those that look askance at Darwin and those who embrace his perspective, and invites people of all faiths to remember that this home we have, this “cradle of life,” deserves to be treasured, respected and preserved. Wilson will speak about Darwin’s life, his publications (about which Wilson has himself written, “From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin’s four great books”) and our shared future on Earth. And while more than half of the American public struggle with Darwin’s theories about evolution and natural selection and embrace the notion of intelligent design, Darwin’s theories – like those of Copernicus or Galileo before him – set the stage for new understanding of what make us human, and unite us.
Wilson is the recipient of innumerable honors, including the National Medal of Science, the gold medal of the World Wildlife Fund, and the Crafoord Prize, the Swedish equivalent to the Noble Peace Prize for ecology. He sits on the boards of the Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and the American Museum of Natural History.
Two of his more than twenty-five books have received Pulitzer Prizes, “On Human Nature” (1978) and “The Ants” (1990) – authored with ASU’s School of Life Sciences Professor Bert Hölldobler. Hölldobler and Wilson will unveil their latest collaborative venture, “The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies” at Darwinfest’s companion event, a national book launch and book signing held at Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden on Nov. 5. For more information: http://darwin.asu.edu.
This ASU Darwinfest kick-off event is free and open to the public. Seats are limited and tickets required. To reserve your tickets, contact Tempe Center for the Arts, 700 W. Rio Salado Parkway, Tempe, AZ 85281; (480) 350-2822.
Comments
Steve Davis | 10/10/08 | 02:10 AM
But we are getting terribly serious. Here is how I would get across how Darwin has changed the way we look at the world.
** ** A Franciscan friar dies and goes to heaven. He finds himself walking through a park in Paradise, and comes across a white-haired saint reading a book and laughing himself fit to bust. He goes up and finds that the man is none other than the founder of his order, Francis of Assisi himself.
"Brother Francis!" he exclaims. "What is it that is making you laugh so much?"
"Brother," replies Francis "do you not remember Brother Donkey?"
"Of course, Brother Francis. That is how you used to describe our flesh, which we had to discipline and constrain!"
"Indeed so. But you must take a look at this book I am reading. It's called Descent of Man by Charles Darwin."
"And so?"
"So I now realize I had the wrong animal all along. It should have been Brother Monkey!" **
(And as Bugs Bunny would say - That's all, folks!)
TTFN
Robert H. Olley
Physics Department
University of Reading
England
Robert H Olley | 10/10/08 | 13:41 PM
Of the thousands of brilliant and elegant persons like ourselves who believe roughly in the Darwinian doctrine, how many are there who know which fossil or skeleton, which parrot tail or which cuttle-fish’s stomach, is really believed to be the conclusive example and absolute datum of natural selection? We know scarcely anything of the Darwinian facts that lead to conversion. What we know is much more important: the Darwinian facts that come after conversion. What we know, to use a higher language, are the fruits of the spirit. We know that with this idea once inside our heads a million things become transparent as if a lamp were lit behind them: we see the thing in the dog in the street, in the pear on the wall, in the book of history we are reading, in the baby in the perambulator and in the last news from Borneo. And the fulfilments pour in upon us in so natural and continual a cataract that at last is reached that paradox of the condition which is called belief. We have seen so many evidences of the theory that we have forgotten them all. The theory is so clear to us that we can scarcely even defend it. If we walked up to the nearest rationalist we know and asked him to prove evolution, he would be dazed, like a man asked to defend justice.
The is only part of the article, entitled The Return of the Angels. It finishes as follows:
Rationalism is a disease of the towns, like the housing problem. All this is, of course, only suggestive, but it is very suggestive. The Phenomenon does not prove Religion; but Religion explains the Phenomenon. ... We have not returned to the spiritual theory because of this or that triviality — because of a justification of the Fourth Gospel or a rap on the table. We have returned to it because, by the rejection of rationalism, the world becomes suddenly rational.
Robert H. Olley
Physics Department
University of Reading
England
Robert H Olley | 10/10/08 | 15:14 PM
Steve Davis | 10/10/08 | 23:21 PM
Lie mirrored on her sea,
Confounding her astronomers,
But, O! delighting me.
There's a lot of interest in your comment, Steve, for example that rationalism leads to financial deregulation. I don't know how, but then my philosophy does not extend much beyond that of Winnie the Pooh. But there are two points on which I'm particularly seeking clarification.
(1) .... a flawed attempt to establish Reason as the guide, but at least it was an attempt.
(2) .... incapable of following his great teacher in the realm of moral thought.
(1) Is reason then THE guide, the only guide?
(2) I gather from reading Adrian Desmond's double biography of Huxley that T.H. was a bit of a "wet" in taking on board the full implications of natural selection. But in regard to Darwin and moral thought, what does the Mahacharya in fact teach?
Robert H. Olley
Physics Department
University of Reading
England
Robert H Olley | 10/11/08 | 15:32 PM
Steve Davis | 10/12/08 | 00:05 AM
Steve Davis | 10/14/08 | 05:40 AM
Hatice Cullingford | 10/14/08 | 09:21 AM
Steve Davis | 10/14/08 | 23:49 PM
In his own time he was surrounded by people whose consciences had been corrupted by French Revolutionary thought, and who developed a bastardized version of science history as iconized by the Flammarion woodcut.
In the west we have since had a "cultural revolution" in the 1960s, contemporaneous with the Wén Huà Dà Gé Mìng, and in Britain we are now ruled by a bunch of student leftovers from that period. They know less than nothing about science, but as the Roman Catholic theologian Peter Kreeft puts it:
Darwin would not have felt at home among such as these.
And if you really would like to know how the ancients and mediaevals viewed our world, read "The Discarded Image" by C.S.Lewis. Yes, the Earth was at the centre of their cosmos, but not in any arrogant way, but because it was, in effect, the "garbage heap" of creation to which the heaviest of the elements had sunk, leaving the heavens pure and pristine.
Robert H. Olley
Physics Department
University of Reading
England