On Human Nature

Let me add my econium for this wonderful book, which received the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, and is likely the best introduction into the emergent field of sociobiology (of which E. O. Wilson is progenitor).The book is deftly, wittily, and elegantly written with great confidence and assuredness. The first half of the book introduces the reader to the promising field of evolutionary psychology, which, for the first time, promises to ground psychology on science rather than ideology. The book rings the death knell to Freud, Jung, pop-psychology, and other pie-in-the-sky notions that have mascaraded as a "human science."The second half of the book addresses four of the most focal concerns of human nature: Aggression, sex, altruism, and religion, on the basis of sociobiology theory. The emergence of this endeavor begins with genes, evolution, and human enculturation, not with theories about infantilism, phallocentrism, and neuroticism. The topics are sufficiently covered in enough detail to keep the reader's interest and sustain the arguments, but with the intent of being introductory and accessible rather than sallying into the esoteric and academic.The consequence is a wholly different orientation toward what is meant by "human nature." The concept is no longer the stuff of speculative metaphysics by armchair philosophers and psychologists, but a true science evolving out of the science of evolutionary theory and genetics. The implications are not quasi-scientific, but truly scientific. Humans do indeed have a "nature," and it is based on nature, not in the imaginations of wishful thinkers.No one, not already exposed to sociobiology, will finish reading this book unaffected for the better. Wilson, the author of "Sociobiology," "Consilience," "The Future of Life," and other enjoyable works, will find a plethora of other authors and books flooding the market with scientific insights into man's true "human nature," including "The Adaptive Mind," "The Moral Animal," "Non-Zero," and "Unto Others."

On reading this again after a couple of decades, I am struck with how brilliantly it is written. The subtlety and incisiveness of Wilson's prose is startling at times, and the sheer depth of his insight into human nature something close to breath-taking. I am also surprised at how well this holds up after twenty-three years. There is very little in Wilson's many acute observations that would need changing. Also, it is interesting to see, in retrospect, that it is this book and not his monumental, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), that continues to serve as an exemplar for later texts. For example, Paul Ehrlich's recent book on evolution was entitled On Human Natures (2000), the plural in the title demonstrating that it was written at least in part as a reaction to Wilson. I also note that some other works including Matt Ridley's The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature.(1993), Robert Wright's The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life (1994), and most recently, Bobbi S. Low's Why Sex Matters: A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior (2000), are organized intellectually in such a manner as to directly update chapters in Wilson's book.On Human Nature was written as a continuation of Sociobiology, greatly expanding the final chapter, "Man: From Sociobiology to Sociology." In doing so, Wilson has met with reaction from some quarters similar to the reaction the Victorians gave Darwin. Wilson's sociobiology was seen as a new rationale for the evils of eugenics and he was ostracized in the social science and humanities departments of colleges and universities throughout the United States and elsewhere. Rereading this book, I can see why. Wilson's primary "sin" is the unmitigated directness of his expression and his refusal to use the shield and obfuscation of politically correct language. Thus he writes on page 203, "In the pages of The New York Review of Books, Commentary, The New Republic, Daedalus, National Review, Saturday Review, and other literary journals[,] articles dominate that read as if most of basic science had halted during the nineteenth century." On page 207, he avers, "Luddites and anti-intellectuals do not master the differential equations of thermodynamics or the biochemical cures of illness. They stay in thatched huts and die young."In the first instance, he has offended the intellectual establishment by pointing out their lack of education, and in the second his incisive expression sounds a bit elitist. But Wilson is not an elitist, nor is he the evil eugenic bad boy that some would have us believe. He is in fact a humanist and one of the world's most renowned scientists, a man who knows more about biology and evolution than most of his critics put together. I want to quote a little from the book to demonstrate the incisive style and the penetrating nature of Wilson's ideas, and in so doing, perhaps hint at just what it is that his critics find objectionable. In the chapter on altruism,

E.O. Wilson composed this towering essay nearly 25 years ago to further develop ideas and relationships proposed in the final pages of his Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. A quarter of a decade later, it continues to startle: in the clarity of its exposition, the aptness of its metaphors, the range of its learning, and, finally, the monumental power marshaled in support of its argument--that human behavior is largely controlled by our species' biological heritage. For social scientists, one of Wilson's most provocative, and useful, proposals is that biology should serve as the "anti-discipline" to the social sciences; that is, evolutionary biology is at an adjacent level of disciplinary organization, operating underneath the social sciences with the potential for reorganizing the disciplines above it according to its own principles. To a great extent, in the ensuing quarter decade, largely because Wilson and his colleagues have successfully defended the perspective of sociobiology, this has become the case in at least two fields: the new discipline of evolutionary psychology has flourished, and a new generation of anthropologists have also taken up evolutionary biology as part of their methodological toolbox. On the other hand, economists, political scientists, and sociologists have arguably lagged behind in making the relevant connections.To understand where the social sciences need to go in the 21st century, On Human Behavior remains an indispensable key (together with and Mitch Waldrop's Complexity, still the most successful introduction to complexity science, although the competition is strong). Moreover, this book (and Waldrop's) should be on every undergraduate's reading list. Even if you decide you disagree with Wilson's argument and conclusions, in toto or in part--and I do (in part), believing, for example, that Wilson lets reproductive strategies overdetermine human behavior, leading him to undervalue cultural evolution (although I surmise he would deny this)--you should purchase this book for the elegance of its writing, which will ease you into a confrontation with your own dearly held views about the constituents of "human nature."

In a superb synthesis of the biological and social siences, Wilson attempts to explain the core principles of our shared humanity as the accumulated result of evolutionary processes over millions of years. His account is remarkable in that it includes comparisons and examples from a diverse range of life-forms, human cultures, and branches of human knowledge. Wilson's empathy with his subject is compelling; his fundamental understanding of socio-biological principles, and sometimes deeply intuitive application of them to other fields is always thought-provoking if not entirely convincing. A worthy and mind-broadening book