E. O. Wilson

Edward Osborne Wilson was born in Birmingham, Alabama, into a family his father's drinking and government jobs kept moving across the South, and his parents divorced when he was young. At seven, a fishing accident drove a fin into his right eye, and the resulting cataract surgery left him with no depth perception in that eye. His surviving left eye, unusually sharp, drew his attention downward, toward small creatures at close range, rather than toward the birds and mammals that needed two working eyes to track. At thirteen he found the first known U.S. colony of imported fire ants near the Mobile docks. He studied at the University of Alabama, then went to Harvard for his doctorate, finishing in 1955 and staying on the faculty for the next four decades.

Wilson spent his Harvard career building the modern study of ants and social behavior: The Insect Societies (1971) synthesized decades of research on colonies, and Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) extended evolutionary explanation to social behavior, human included, which set off one of the fiercest fights in twentieth-century biology. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for nonfiction, for On Human Nature (1979) and, with Bert Holldobler, The Ants (1991). In 1988 he edited the volume that pushed the word "biodiversity" into everyday use, and he became one of conservation's leading voices, proposing in Half-Earth (2016) that roughly half the planet's land and ocean be set aside for other species. He died in Burlington, Massachusetts, in December 2021, four months after his wife of sixty-six years, Irene, at ninety-two.

Sociobiology cost him more than an academic argument. Fellow Harvard biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin organized formally against his ideas, and in 1978, at a scientific conference, protesters poured a pitcher of ice water over his head while chanting, accusing him of supplying intellectual cover for racism and eugenics. Wilson spent decades insisting the charge misread him. Then, after his death, historians combing his papers found decades of private correspondence in which he had quietly encouraged and defended J. Philippe Rushton, a psychologist whose work linking race and intelligence nearly the entire field regarded as pseudoscience -- support Wilson never made public, apparently aware of what it would cost him, while making it anyway in letters. His own foundation was left to disavow it in 2022.

His public legacy and his private record are still being reconciled. The word "biodiversity" he helped popularize is now permanent in conservation policy, and the Half-Earth idea has shaped how major conservation organizations set land-protection targets since 2016. The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation continues funding research in his name even as it has had to answer publicly for what his letters showed. Historians of science treat him, without much dispute, as the twentieth century's foremost authority on ants and a founder of modern sociobiology -- how much weight the Rushton correspondence should carry against that record, and how it should shape how he is taught, remains an open argument inside the field itself.

E. O. Wilson's life against the full span of the corpus.

• The Insect Societies book
  Synthesis of decades of research on social insects 1971
• Sociobiology: The New Synthesis book
  Extended evolutionary explanation to social behavior, including human 1975
• On Human Nature book
  Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, 1979 1978
• The Ants book
  With Bert Holldobler; Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, 1991 1990
• Half-Earth book
  Proposed setting aside half the planet's surface for other species 2016
• E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation other
  Foundation supporting conservation research and science writing 2005

• 1936 aged ~7 A fishing accident partially blinds his right eye
• 1942 aged ~13 Discovers the first known U.S. colony of imported fire ants near Mobile, Alabama
• 1955 aged ~26 Earns his Ph.D. from Harvard and joins its faculty
• 1975 aged ~46 Publishes Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, triggering fierce academic backlash
• 1978 aged ~49 Protesters pour water on him at a scientific conference over the sociobiology debate
• 1988 aged ~59 Edits the volume that popularizes the term "biodiversity"
• 2016 aged ~87 Publishes Half-Earth, proposing large-scale global land protection
• December 26, 2021 aged 92 Dies in Burlington, Massachusetts, at 92

• Rachel Carson 1907–1964
  Marine biologist whose book Silent Spring launched the modern environmental movement. built on the conservation argument of
• Stephen Jay Gould 1941–2002
  Paleontologist and essayist who advanced punctuated equilibrium and became a leading public interpreter of evolution. clashed with
• John Muir 1838–1914
  Naturalist and organizer whose advocacy helped create national parks and the modern wilderness movement. shared intellectual ground with
• James Watson 1928–2025
  Co-discoverer of the DNA double helix structure, earning a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. contemporary in evolutionary biology