Categorical claims are always subject to controversy, but few will disagree that Edward Osborne Wilson (1929-2021) was the greatest living biologist. The Washington Post announces his death as Darwin’s heir, no less.
Nothing less, and nothing fairer. Sociobiology, biodiversity, biophilia —EO Wilson was at the root of concepts and ideas that guided the most vibrant biology of the 20th and 21st centuries, just as the evolutionism of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) galvanized the passage from the 19th to the 20th.
It is not by chance that the work of both still reverberates, and far beyond the field of natural science. The ultra-right, however, fights against the theory of evolution, sympathizes with the sociobiological determinism of immutable human nature, and deplores the environmental conservationism inherent in the naturalist’s craft.
This was how Wilson identified himself, even more than as a biologist, so much so that he gave this title, “Naturalist” (1994), to his autobiography. More specifically, he was a myrmecologist, an ant specialist who described hundreds of species, with the minutiae of a goldsmith bending over a magnifying glass to draw them.
Scientific fame preceded all the controversy created by the publication of “Sociobiology – A Nova Síntese” (1975). In 1963, with Robert MacArthur (1930-1972), he launched ideas on the relationship between habitat size and number of species that would compose the so-called theory of island biogeography.
The mathematical model has the elegance of great scientific concepts. An island receives new species—insects, seeds, birds, etc.—through migration and loses others through extinction, reaching a dynamic equilibrium in which the resulting amount of species is proportionate to the area and distance of other islands.
From there, considering biological diversity as a value in itself was a step, which gave rise to the imperative of conserving large natural areas in order to preserve biodiversity — a term that he consecrated in the company of another great biologist, Thomas Lovejoy (1941-2021), by an unfortunate coincidence dead two days earlier.
Wilson has written several books in defense of preservation, such as “The Diversity of Life” (1992) and “The Creation” (2006). He became a hero of environmentalism, having served as an advisor to NGOs such as Conservation International and WWF, but his figure contradicts the conviction of many that every environmentalist is a leftist, as in this sector the academy has never seen him with good eyes.
At the origin of the discord is the work “Sociobiology”, followed by “About Human Nature”, which would win the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1979 (Wilson would receive another, in 1991, for “The Ants”, with Bert Hölldobler).
Simply put, Wilson intends to explain all the behavior of women, men, etc. based on biology, that is, universals fixed in genes by natural selection (the “human nature”). This naturalization appeals to conservatives, who see there the matrix of the monogamous family, belief in God, war and so on.
It is true that sociobiology, revamped as evolutionary psychology, has also produced explanations for homosexuality, male promiscuity, female submission, racism, murder and even rape. Sound familiar in Brazil today?
Wilson’s genetic determinism has been criticized by progressive colleagues at Harvard, such as biologists Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) and Richard Lewontin (1929-2021). The naturalist was harassed by students, to the point that, at a roundtable on sociobiology, a militant poured a pitcher of water over his head.
Gentleman Wilson would never go to such extremes of aggression, but he knew how to defend members of the deterministic clan. One of them to receive his sympathy was the controversial anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon (1938-2019), author of infamous books about the Yanomami, “The Ferocious People” (1967) and “Nobles Savages” (2013).
Chagnon became persona non grata among anthropologists, especially after the publication of “Trevas no Eldorado” (2000), by journalist Patrick Tierney, who accused him of abuses, in the company of James Neel (1915-2000), against indigenous people. Not exactly a good book, it denounced Chagnon’s repulsive notions (just reading Chagnon’s works is enough to form such a judgment).
Wilson came to Chagnon’s defense. Along with ultra-Darwinist leaders Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, and Marc Hauser, he pressured author John Horgan in 2000 not to review, or at least lash out at, “Darkness in Eldorado” so as not to jeopardize his own journalistic career .
I prefer to think that the naturalist was more engaged in defending sociobiology than Chagnon, as it would be easier to reconcile with the image of profound kindness that Wilson left on meeting him in 1998 (read the interview published in leaf at the time).
The Alabama gentleman personified as few others the etymological and ethical proximity between conservatism and conservationism. It is sad that he leaves the planet at the moment when it most needs the civility implicit in this compromise.
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