In Search of Nature

Edward O. Wilson, Laura Southworth

• Publisher: Island Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781559632164
  9781559632157
• eBook ISBN:
  9781597269179
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Perhaps more than any other scientist of our century, Edward O. Wilson has scrutinized animals in their natural settings, tweezing out the dynamics of their social organization, their relationship with their environments, and their behavior, not only for what it tells us about the animals themselves, but for what it can tell us about human nature and our own behavior. He has brought the fascinating and sometimes surprising results of these studies to general readers through a remarkable collection of books, including The Diversity of Life, The Ants, On Human Nature, and Sociobiology. The grace and precision with which he writes of seemingly complex topics has earned him two Pulitzer prizes, and the admiration of scientists and general readers around the world.
 
 
In Search of Nature presents for the first time a collection of the seminal short writings of Edward O. Wilson, addressing in brief and eminently readable form the themes that have actively engaged this remarkable intellect throughout his career.
 
 
"The central theme of the essays is that wild nature and human nature are closely interwoven. I argue that the only way to make complete sense of either is by examining both closely and together as products of evolution.... Human behavior is seen not just as the product of recorded history, ten thousand years recent, but of deep history, the combined genetic and cultural changes that created humanity over hundreds of thousands of years. We need this longer view, I believe, not only to understand our species, but more firmly to secure its future."
 
 
The book is composed of three sections. "Animal Nature, Human Nature" ranges from serpents to sharks to sociality in ants. It asks how and why the universal aversion to snakes might have evolved in humans and primates, marvels at the diversity of the world's 350 species of shark and how their adaptive success has affected our conception of the world, and admonishes us to "be careful of little lives"—to see in the construction of insect social systems "another grand experiment in evolution for our delectation.
 
 
"The Patterns of Nature" probes at the foundation of sociobiology, asking what is the underlying genetic basis of social behavior, and what that means for the future of the human species. Beginning with altruism and aggression, the two poles of behavior, these essays describe how science, like art, adds new information to the accumulated wisdom, establishing new patterns of explanation and inquiry. In "The Bird of Paradise: The Hunter and the Poet," the analytic and synthetic impulses-exemplified in the sciences and the humanities-are called upon to give full definition to the human prospect.
 
 
"Nature's Abundance" celebrates biodiversity, explaining its fundamental importance to the continued existence of humanity. From "The Little Things That Run the World"—invertebrate species that make life possible for everyone and everything else-to the emergent belief of many scientists in the human species' possible innate affinity for other living things, known as biophilia, Wilson sets forth clear and compelling reasons why humans should concern themselves with species loss. "Is Humanity Suicidal?" compares the environmentalist's view with that of the exemptionalist, who holds that since humankind is transcendent in intelligence and spirit, our species must have been released from the iron laws of ecology that bind all other species. Not without optimism, Wilson concludes that we are smart enough and have time enough to avoid an environmental catastrophe of civilization-threatening dimensions—if we are willing both to redirect our science and technology and to reconsider our self-image as a species.
 
 
In Search of Nature is a lively and accessible introduction to the writings of one of the most brilliant scientists of the 20th century. Imaginatively illustrated by noted artist Laura Southworth, it is a book all readers will treasure.

INDEX

Adaptability of sharks

Adaptive radiation

Adoption

Aesthetic value

Africa

African gaboon vipers

Aggression

Agkistrodon (snakes)

Alpha wave blockage

Altmann, Stuart

Altruism

Amazon rain forest

Amino acid sequencing

Amphibians

Analytic/synthetic science

Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (Fromm)

Androcentric culture

Angel sharks

Anthropocentric ethic

Anthropologists

Antiquity of the invertebrates

Ants:

aggressive acts

army

biomass

driver

food-storage caste

guidance systems

Gulf Coast

humans, teaching

leafcutter

mites

neurobiology

social systems

stinging, giant tropical

suicide, altruistic

weaver

Aplysia californica (snails)

Arabian Sea

Army ants

Art, role of

Arthropods

Asclepius (myth)

Ashtoreth (spirit)

Asia

Assembly rules

Asteroid colliding with Earth

Atmosphere

Atta (ants)

Australia

Australopithecus afarensis-Homo habilis (man)

Aztec people

Baboons, hamadryas

Bacteria

Bees

Beetles

Behavior, evolutionary origins of

Berlin, Brent

Bias in learning

Biocultural evolution

Biodiversity

Biological channeling of culture

Biology

evolution

neurobiology

pluralization of

systematics

thematic shift

Biomass, insect

Biophilia (Wilson)

Biophilic traits

environmental despoliation

environmental ethic

gene-culture coevolution

learning rules

testing thesis on

Bird of paradise

Birds

Black ants

Black racers (snakes)

Black-tipped sharks

Blindness, color

Blue sharks

Brain, the:

ants

biocentric world

evolution

juggernaut theory of human nature

light intensity

semantic memory

Bramble sharks

Brazil

Bull sharks

Burma

Bushmen, African

Caduceus

California

Camponotus (ants)

Cannibalism

Carcharodon carcharias (sharks)

Carnivores

Cell biology

Central America

Cerebral cortex

Chemical secretions from ants

Chemoreception

Children, snakes/serpents and young

Chimpanzees

Chinese, Han

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)

Cihuacoatl (goddess)

Civil War and disease

Climate-controlled ant nests

Coatlicue (god)

Coelenterates

Cognit...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• PREFACE
• ANIMAL NATURE,
• THE PATTERNS
• NATURE’S
• ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SOURCES
• INDEX