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Edward O. Wilson
Professor Emeritus, Harvard University
Darwin and the Future of Biology
November 4, 2008
Audio Podcast and Written Transcript Available
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Edward O. Wilson
Professor Emeritus, Harvard University
Edward O. Wilson was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1929. He received his B.S. and M.S. in biology from the University of Alabama and, in 1955, his Ph.D. in biology from Harvard, where he taught for four decades, receiving both of its college-wide teaching awards. He is currently University Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard, and Honorary Curator in Entomology of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. He is the recipient of more than 100 international medals and awards, including the National Medal of Science; the International Prize for Biology from Japan; the Catalonia Prize of Spain; the Presidential Medal of Italy; the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, given in fields of science not covered by the Nobel Prize; and for his conservation efforts, the Gold Medal of the Worldwide Fund for Nature and the Audubon Medal of the National Audubon Society.
He is the author of 25 books, two of which won Pulitzer Prizes, Human Nature (1978) and The Ants (1990, with Bert Hülldobler of Arizona State University). Six of Wilson’s books compose two trilogies. The first, The Insect Societies, Sociobiology, and On Human Nature (1971–78) founded sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. The second, The Diversity of Life, The Future of Life, and The Creation (1992–2006) organized the base of modern biodiversity conservation. Wilson has served on the Boards of Directors of The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, and the American Museum of Natural History, and gives many lectures throughout the world. His most recent books include Consilience (1998), which argues for the uniting of the natural sciences with the humanities, and The Superorganism, an examination of the “beauty, elegance and strangeness of insect societies” (coauthored with Bert Hülldobler, to be published November 5, 2008.
In 2003, Wilson conceived the idea of the Encyclopoedia of Life, which has since come to fruition. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, with his wife, Irene.