![]() ![]() In his 1994 autobiography, Naturalist, he lamented: "The subject… simply languished, mostly ignored by biologists and social scientists alike". Wilson was the unsung pioneer of this approach. Now, the evidence is overwhelming and, most interesting of all, the human genome is revealing how genes and culture have co-evolved, especially during the last 10,000 years of our rise from hunter-gatherers. In his recent Letters to a Young Scientist (Norton, £14.99), he can look back on such low points with mellow hindsight this compelling little book should be given to every teenager hesitating about taking science further. Wilson was sufficiently old-fashioned to study animals in real habitats. ![]() ![]() Get money off this title at the Independent book shop It comes garlanded with praise from the scientific great and good, and it's gratifying to see James Watson's eulogy on the cover because, in an episode Wilson once referred to as "The Molecular Wars", he suffered Watson's disdain for not being the only kind of biologist the co-discoverer of the DNA structure recognised: a molecular biologist. ![]() Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Gauguin's painting and its plangent title form the leitmotif of Edward O Wilson's summation of social biological societies on earth. ![]()
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