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E.O. Wilson has died

reuters.com

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Re: E.O. Wilson has died

#41

Post by snowwrestler »

Theizestooke wrote: post #20
wombatmobile wrote: post #18

"If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos." — Edward O. Wilson

Both scenarios would cause upheaval, and I'm not sure what he means by a "rich state of equilibrium".

The living world is not currently in a state of equilibrium. The populations of humans and the animals and plants we keep are growing extremely quickly; almost every other population of living thing is shrinking quickly.

“Rich” refers to the variety and abundance of living things. The total biomass of living things has declined (there’s less overall) and what is left is concentrated into far fewer species than previously.

Just taken as a store of information, the loss is staggering. But from a practical perspective we are less rich; it’s far harder today to catch fish than it used to be, for example.

Re: E.O. Wilson has died

#43

Post by yucky »

dwt204 wrote: post #39

Evolutionary biologists are divided on his work. His own research and published works have been used by racists for example to readily explain the social origins of intelligence, poverty, crime, and violence regarding POC. He never actively fought against such tendencies, even though he was aware that he had become the darling of white nationalists, and even fascists globally. I believe that ALL "traits" can be expla…

>I believe that ALL "traits" can be explained by social environment rather than by biology.

That probably "feels right" to say, but is it backed up with data? DNA is a real thing, not a social construct.

Re: E.O. Wilson has died

#44

Post by api »

dexwell wrote: post #3

"The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology" — E. O. Wilson, 2009

The cyberpunks were by far the most prophetic of all science fiction writers, and I feel like this kind of insight is what drove that. They put forward a future where they were optimistic about technology and neutral to pessimistic about human beings.

Re: E.O. Wilson has died

#45

Post by api »

Theizestooke wrote: post #20
wombatmobile wrote: post #18

"If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos." — Edward O. Wilson

Both scenarios would cause upheaval, and I'm not sure what he means by a "rich state of equilibrium".

The notion of equilibrium is something I always disagree with when I read environmentalists. The ecosystem is never in equilibrium. If it were it would be dead. If it reached a meta-stable state evolutionary change would halt.

An icy comet circling way out beyond Neptune is an example of a system somewhat near equilibrium.

Re: E.O. Wilson has died

#47

Post by VictorPath »

pdonis wrote: post #40
dwt204 wrote: post #39

Evolutionary biologists are divided on his work. His own research and published works have been used by racists for example to readily explain the social origins of intelligence, poverty, crime, and violence regarding POC. He never actively fought against such tendencies, even though he was aware that he had become the darling of white nationalists, and even fascists globally. I believe that ALL "traits" can be expla…

While Wilson's extreme position on nature over nurture is certainly open to question, Gould is not a good source to be referencing (and the extreme position of nurture over nature you describe is at least as much open to question). Evolutionary biologists may be "divided" about Wilson, but they're pretty firmly negative about Gould's work in that field. See, for example, here: http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.…

Gould said that one faction of evolutionary biologists were mostly wasting their time, it's not a surprise that they would be firmly negative about that.

The letter signers you posted say they are from the center for evolutionary psychology, departments of anthropology and psychology. This is the whole problem, they have one foot (if not both feet) outside of science and in social science.

Re: E.O. Wilson has died

#48

Post by drewcoo »

yucky wrote: post #43
dwt204 wrote: post #39

Evolutionary biologists are divided on his work. His own research and published works have been used by racists for example to readily explain the social origins of intelligence, poverty, crime, and violence regarding POC. He never actively fought against such tendencies, even though he was aware that he had become the darling of white nationalists, and even fascists globally. I believe that ALL "traits" can be expla…

>I believe that ALL "traits" can be explained by social environment rather than by biology. That probably "feels right" to say, but is it backed up with data? DNA is a real thing, not a social construct.

Social constructs are real things.

Re: E.O. Wilson has died

#49

Post by pdonis »

VictorPath wrote: post #47
pdonis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Wilson's extreme position on nature over nurture is certainly open to question, Gould is not a good source to be referencing (and the extreme position of nurture over nature you describe is at least as much open to question). Evolutionary biologists may be "divided" about Wilson, but they're pretty firmly negative about Gould's work in that field. See, for example, here: http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.…

Gould said that one faction of evolutionary biologists were mostly wasting their time, it's not a surprise that they would be firmly negative about that. The letter signers you posted say they are from the center for evolutionary psychology, departments of anthropology and psychology. This is the whole problem, they have one foot (if not both feet) outside of science and in social science.

> Gould said that one faction of evolutionary biologists were mostly wasting their time

Yes, he said that, but he said it in the context of giving descriptions of what those evolutionary biologists were doing that were completely disconnected from reality.

> The letter signers you posted

Are an anthropologist and a psychologist, yes. But the criticisms of Gould that they describe are by no means limited to those fields. The names they list in footnote 2, for example, are a roll call of major evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. Those people are not "outside of science"; they are right in the middle of the scientific field that Gould portrayed himself as an expert on, and they all say Gould's claims are nonsense.

Re: E.O. Wilson has died

#50

Post by jonjacky »

junon wrote: post #14

Never heard of E.O. Wilson before now, but his work sounds fascinating. Anyone have any suggestions on how to break into his stuff? Sounds like he has 30 or so books, is "On Human Nature" a good start?

His autobiography Naturalist (1994) is a very readable introduction to his life and work -- and to his personality. He writes there about the controversies in his life, including his disputes at Harvard with his nemesis James Watson, and the Sociobiology controversy in the 1970s.
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