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From the TTBOOK Program:
BETWEEN BELIEF AND UNBELIEF

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For a man who’s obsessed with tiny critters, Edward O. Wilson has a strange knack for stirring up controversy about life’s biggest questions. The Harvard biologist is a renowned expert on insects, the co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Ants.” But it was his seminal 1975 book “Sociobiology,” which laid the groundwork for the new field of evolutionary psychology, that made Wilson a scientific luminary - and a major intellectual force in America. That book, along with its Pulitzer Prize-winning sequel, “On Human Nature,” argued that many human behaviors - including aggression, altruism and hypocrisy - are shaped by evolution. Wilson’s tilt toward nature in the age- old nature/nurture debate may have put him on the map, but it also made plenty of enemies. Fellow Harvard biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin denounced sociobiology, saying it provided a genetic justification for racism and Nazi ideology. Wilson’s classes were picketed. In one famous incident, demonstrators at a scientific meeting stormed the stage where he was speaking and dumped a pitcher of water over his head, chanting, “Wilson, you’re all wet!”

Over the years, sociobiology - once so controversial - became a widely accepted branch of science. Ultimately, Wilson won the National Medal of Science for his scholarship. And his own popularity soared when he emerged as a champion of biodiversity and a passionate advocate for endangered species. His 1992 book “The Diversity of Life” became a bestseller. But he stirred up more trouble in the late ‘90s with another book, “Consilience.” This was his attempt to outline a unified theory of knowledge, which had the effect of elevating science at the expense of religion and the arts. In his view, knowledge of the world ultimately comes down to chemistry, biology and - above all - physics; people are just extremely complicated machines. Wendell Berry, among other critics, railed against Wilson’s scientific reductionism, calling it a “modern superstition.”

Wilson is now retired, though - at 76 - he still spends plenty of time at his Harvard lab. And he continues to write and lecture. He recently edited a collection of Charles Darwin’s books titled “From So Simple a Beginning” (W.W. Norton). In person, Wilson is a courtly Southerner. He’s an affable man who laughs easily and - unlike many scientists - is quite willing to speculate on the most cosmic questions. This was evident when he stopped by our radio studio before giving a sold out lecture at the University of Wisconsin. We talked about Darwin and the growing rift between science and religion, as well as Wilson’s own take on religion - his “provisional deism” and his personal horror of an eternal afterlife in heaven.

E.O. Wilson & Steve Paulson on Science and Religion
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