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E. O. Wilson Still Thrives on Being a Scientific Provocateur

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Re: E. O. Wilson Still Thrives on Being a Scientific Provocateur

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My son (he's 12) is currently infatuated with ants, he bought a colony from a GAN farmer through AntsCanada and is watching his videos all the time (they are great, by the way). We checked out Holldobler and Wilson's epic tome Ants (it's too expensive, even for a used copy, but a beautiful, large volume) but he found Wilson's Journey to the Ants much more readable, he's going through it page by page, taking notes, wh…

> very few animals other than these exhibit eusociality (humans aside, Technically, humans are not eusocial, which by definition requires a biological division of reproductive labor. Most eusocial species actually have significant morphological differences in their classes (i.e. females that physically can or cannot reproduce). Wilson tends to repeat the idea of humans and other primates as eusocial which I find conf…

> humans are not eusocial, which by definition requires a biological division of reproductive labor

Wouldn't the biological division of labor regarding breast-feeding in humans be sufficient? It's a significant morphological difference.

Re: E. O. Wilson Still Thrives on Being a Scientific Provocateur

#12
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> very few animals other than these exhibit eusociality (humans aside, Technically, humans are not eusocial, which by definition requires a biological division of reproductive labor. Most eusocial species actually have significant morphological differences in their classes (i.e. females that physically can or cannot reproduce). Wilson tends to repeat the idea of humans and other primates as eusocial which I find conf…

> humans are not eusocial, which by definition requires a biological division of reproductive labor Wouldn't the biological division of labor regarding breast-feeding in humans be sufficient? It's a significant morphological difference.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. You're right of course that the male/female distinction of sexual reproduction is in itself is a clear case of 'biological division of reproductive labor'. Child-bearing itself is an even clearer example than breast-feeding. I'm not sure jly was really getting at the core aspects of eusociality there.

Humans aren't eusocial, but we certainly have division of reproductive labor. So do non-social sexual species.

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