Asking for a friend: is there any actual consensus amongst the scientific community that E.O. Wilson’s body of research is dated and in need of debunking? She needs to know – because if there is, she’ll have to rename her rat.
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That’s right, I named my rat E.O. Wilson. Afterall, a clever creature is deserving of a clever name, no?
I mourned the loss of the late biologist E.O. Wilson. Through his prolific writings he taught me to see beyond the human, to extend my sphere of moral consideration and curiosity to the whole of Kingdom Animalia. He propounded some pioneering philosophies and he did so with a pleasing and passionate prose. That’s why this latest op-ed in Scientific American leaves me aghast and mourning all the more. To degrade Wilson’s life work to a dispassionate query is so reckless (not to mention disrespectful) as to leave me dazed and dumb. Recovered now from the speechlessness that settled on me this morning, I want to put my emotional reaction in written form.
No. Just no.
The opinion piece (because that’s all it is: one opinion) makes reference ad nauseum to problematic work, problematic beliefs, and faulty notions. But the piece itself is problematic. It’s emblematic of the extraneous and unsubstantiated rhetoric that has become a hallmark of contemporary culture. To me, this op-ed is just one more misplaced monologue in an unfortunately long line of misplaced monologues in this newfangled era of Knave New American Intellectualism. The deliberate hijacking of science by political views has gone on far too long and, frankly, is a much more insidious epidemic than even Covid is. Let’s please stop usurping scientific platforms for this kind of irrelevant discourse; printing this in a respected publication like SciAm gives it the specious appearance of novelty – but don’t be fooled – this isn’t new, it isn’t original, it isn’t even interesting. Besides which, it taints as vacuous drivel what is, in fact, a morally sound argument (the importance of context and the inextricably linked nature of all living beings – but more on that to come in the blog).
In reading this opinion I can’t help but think of a much older, more creditable article in SciAm on the definition of pseudoscience. The article quotes a Princeton University historian of science as saying about pseudoscience that he calls it this “not because its proponents are doing bad science—they are not doing science at all—but because they threaten science education in America, […], and they confuse the public about the nature of evolutionary theory and how science is conducted.”
This is how I feel about this op-ed and the pitfalls it presents. For starters, it has a lot to say about scientific method, much of it critical. I don’t knock all its criticism. For instance, I’ll agree with the opinion that the application of the scientific method matters. Normally I would also agree with the statement that truth and reconciliation are necessary and that we need to think critically about where and when to include historically problematic work and … the limitations of ideas embedded in any work. But this opinion frames these otherwise reasonable injunctions within the narrative that white male scientists need to be evaluated and critiqued on the basis of ? … the scientific method being tainted by their race?
This opinion is so hamstrung by hubris that it’s entirely blind to the duplicity of its own discourse. You know that saying: when you point a finger at someone there are three fingers pointing back at you? Yeah. It’s hard not to relegate this opinion to anything more than an average ad hominem attack .
It is one thing to critically dissect the methods, but are we to believe we ought to be doing the same to all the scientists operating within these methods as well? That’s sure to confuse the public about how science is conducted. And if it’s not enough to move forward with new and improved methods, (and presumably new and improved scientists too), the essay also calls for an investigation into what portion of our body of historically conducted scientific knowledge remains relevant and what portion it is time to discard (like cabinets of clothing from a bygone era).
More pressing, I think, is the need for an investigation into the mechanics of opinion formation. As already mentioned, this kind of (problematic) discourse is not new; it has established itself across all disciplines, and the attitudes, judgments, and opinions that fuel it have become so popularized of late as to have reached celebrity proportions. What is worrisome about this is that ideas promulgated by social influence almost always lack systematic empirical validation (in a way, I’ll add, that E.O. Wilson’s work never did). The process by which individuals revise their beliefs, adapt their opinions, and change their behaviours in response to social interactions with other people who have only a superficial, buzzword-based appreciation of a nuanced subject, needs to be better understood because of its potential magnitude. After all, as Edward Abbey warned:
“One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain’t nothin’ can beat teamwork.”
So what’s the actual crux of the issue?
Here is my oversimplified version of the opinion’s argument: E.O. Wilson states that the prevalence of some genes over others is a result of environmental factors. The opinion disputes the credibility of differences amongst humans being chalked up to genetics and inheritance and asserts instead that they are the result of socioeconomic factors.
To be completely candid, I’m not entirely sure exactly where the offence is taken. The opinion that E.O. Wilson is a racist is clearly expressed – but is he painted as a racist because his research ignored socioeconomic factors? If so, it’s worth noting that E.O. Wilson was, first and foremost, a biologist – and that’s a completely unreasonable expectation to hold of a biologist. In some academic fields, blurring disciplinary lines forfeits accuracy and compromises reliability of results, and so it’s unlikely there will be much sympathy with that argument. Biology was E.O. Wilson’s unit of analysis. When he framed his study of human behaviour, he did so as a biologist – he asked questions and sought answers that fit within his unit of analysis, not because he didn’t care about socioeconomics or recognize it’s importance, but because it was his job to investigate human instinctive behaviour from the perspective of a biologist. And as a biologist, E.O. Wilson readily reminded us that we “evolved in the midst of a living world that has peculiar properties that have deeply influenced what we’ve become.”
I feel it’s important to pause here and reiterate that I’m not suggesting the promoted opinion isn’t valid. I’m suggesting it isn’t relevant.
Racism is an ugly and systemic problem. As an Arab, I know something of it. In my own experience, anthropomorphism is a way – albeit a slightly innocent way – of encouraging the abolition of speciesism in our collective thinking. Ontologically it flows that racism is a sort of speciesism (I know it’s not a widely accepted notion, but it should be) and as such I find fault with this opinion for ignorantly employing the same small-mindedness it accuses E.O. Wilson of. How, in good conscience, can an opinion profess to eschew the inadequacy of theoretical underpinnings based on a superior subject and an inferior one without acknowledging the dichotomy that exists between human and nonhuman animals? The definition of history contained in this op-ed is limited to a sociopolitical history of racism; it is too fractional, too anthropocentric, too ego-centric even. E.O. Wilson believed that “ to get hold of the human condition, we need a much broader definition of history than is conventionally used.” History makes no sense without prehistory and prehistory makes no sense without biology and E.O. Wilson was a biologist.
As a biologist, E.O. Wilson was one of the most romantic figures on earth. I mean this in the academic sense of the narrative literary genre – where the hero is on a quest that involves strong values and bravery. Yes, E.O. Wilson was a hero and in this op-ed he is grievously mischaracterized.
Perhaps this opinion should have chosen to better inform itself; perhaps it should have chosen to read and mature alongside E.O. Wilson’s expanding ideology before prematurely ejaculating its embryonic ego all over the page.
The seminal text referred to in the op-ed, and the one that presumably substantiates the claim that EO Wilson was a racist, was written in 1975. There are a hundred defences to be made about the content and context of Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, a hundred defences that a hundred scientists are better qualified to make, so I defer to them. Although it is my understanding that E.O. Wilson reneged on some of his earlier research, that is not the point I want to make. All I wish to say is that E.O. Wilson, being on a genuine quest to understand humanity, amassed a growing knowledge base and espoused an ever-evolving philosophy. Perhaps this opinion should have chosen to better inform itself; perhaps it should have chosen to read and mature alongside E.O. Wilson’s expanding ideology before prematurely ejaculating its embryonic ego all over the page.
E.O. Wilson’s research and writing was founded on the principle that genetic influence plays a role in the variation exhibited by individuals; he did not aggressively advocate the ideas of biological determination. He had an insider’s appreciation for the uniqueness of human characteristics and he supported the idea of a universal human nature. In his book The Meaning of Human Existence, in which he discusses the advancements of the technoscientific era and the inevitability of volitional selection (as opposed to natural selection), he writes: “I hereby cast a vote for existential conservatism, the preservation of biological human nature as a sacred trust.” In his later years, increasingly concerned about the fate of humanity, E.O. Wilson forewent political correctness which perhaps offended some, but he did it out of interest and involvement for what he called the greatest moral dilemma humanity has yet to face.
This quote by Darwin ( also displayed elsewhere on this blog) is my constant reminder of where I stand as a human in biological and cultural history. It reminds me of kin and kind. It emboldens me to be compassionate because of our shared nature and to be curious because of our shared nature. I refer to it again now to suggest that the animus in the op-ed piece might also be better conceived as a difference of degree and not of kind. It would do well to serve up a little more humility and a little more humanity. Truthfully, to borrow an eloquent phrase from Cornel West, what we all need is to get out of our unique and singular skins and imagine what it’s like to be in the skin of others.
Sadly, this opinion has nothing to do with E.O. Wilson or the human he was or the Thought he advanced. Some might disagree (read: Laura Helmuth) but I don’t think this was the platform to wax poetic on issues of social justice and social reform, nor – and on this point I’m much more confident – was the event of E.O. Wilson’s death the occasion to do it. E.O. Wilson was not callous or careless and he was not a racist. This opinion does not get to cancel his invaluable legacy, it does not get to revoke his cultural and scientific cachet. In the street slang words of my brother-in-law: this opinion has no business.