Tag Archives: evolution

RIP E. O. Wilson (1929 – 2021)

 Sociobiology: The Human Animal (1977)

E. O. Wilson was an American writer, biologist and naturalist best-known for his book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975).

This book met with great criticism from the political left. In Not in Our Genes (1984) these opponents rejected sociobiology and expressed their desire for a socialist society.

There is a film Sociobiology: The Human Animal (1977) by the BBC. I show it supra. It features interviews with Wilson and his main opponent, Lewontin, co-author of Not in Our Genes.

RIP Richard Lewontin (1929 – 2021)

Richard Lewontin was an American evolutionary biologist noted for many things, but also for opposing Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) by E. O. Wilson, co-writing  Not in Our Genes (1984), in the preface of which is stated:

“We [Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon Kamin] share a commitment to the prospect of the creation of a more socially just—a socialist—society. And we recognize that a critical science is an integral part of the struggle to create that society, just as we also believe that the social function of much of today’s science is to hinder the creation of that society by acting to preserve the interests of the dominant class, gender, and race.”