When random people you've never met are observing your birthday with doughnuts in the shape of your initials, I think it's safe to say you've made it.
Thursday, December 30, 2021
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5 comments:
Just read a short bio of him, since your post piqued my interest. Quite remarkable. I see that he reported the first colony of fire ants in the US, in Alabama. Those things are the bane of many a Texan's existence. I still have scars from the time a bunch of them scurried up my forearm while I was working in the yard and bit me all at once in unison (likely from a coordinated signal they send to each other). I still have some small scars. Fascinating creatures.
All the obits are gushing over him as a “second Darwin,” but not that long ago he was considered a highly controversial wacist. One time some student schmucktivists poured a glass of water over his head in protest while he was lecturing. We wrote a comically overdramatized one-act play about it called “The Passion of E. O. Wilson.”
I also composed a piece of electronic music in an ancient Greek mode, called “Journey to the Ants” and loosely based on that classic introduction to myrmecology by Wilson and Holldobler. (I say “loosely” because there are no alien abductions or shoe polish in the book.)
I'm in awe, William, and I'm not being snarky. You got de skills what pay de bills.
I never had a special affection for the chap (because I never read his 'naturalist' work like the ants), but I read his autobiography (where he took the right side in a dispute against James Watson converting the entire Harvard biology department - and then the world - to biochemistry); and his Sociobiology (1975) which (although flawed) was groundbreaking and led to evolutionary psychology in the late 1980s - where I did much of my academic work. It was this which made him a bogeyman for the academic left. I got the impression EOW rather caved in and pandered to his critics later in life; by dropping the sociobiology, talking about atheism and spouting stuff about 'biodiversity. If he is getting good obits in the MSM, I suppose the pandering worked; because 25 years ago he would have got hit pieces.
SK, I think you’re assuming too much about the quality of the pieces I mention. None of my dabbling in the various arts has ever paid a single bill.
Bruce, I read his autobiography, and Consilience, but wasn’t particularly wowed. The ant books, though, are a major accomplishment. I’ll bet Darwin’s barnacle stuff would be good, too.
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