Humanist profile: Edward O. Wilson 1999 Humanist of the Year."We can say to the transcendentalists that there is a thousand times more to the human condition--more history, more complexity, more nobility--than you thought. There is more to being human than dreamt in your philosophy. And having arrived at this position, humanity has opened the way to base spirituality and ethics on a more rational, benign foundation."--Edward O. Wilson in the September/October 1999 Humanist One of the world's preeminent biologists, Edward Osborne Wilson Noun 1. Edward Osborne Wilson - United States entomologist who has generalized from social insects to other animals including humans (born in 1929) E. O. Wilson, Wilson was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 10, 1929. Raised a Southern Baptist, he left the ranks of the church while at the University of Alabama The University of Alabama (also known as Alabama, UA or colloquially as 'Bama) is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA. Founded in 1831, UA is the flagship campus of the University of Alabama System. , where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in biology. Wilson went on to receive his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1955 and to become one of the youngest members of Harvard's faculty at the age of 26. He remains at Harvard as University Professor Emeritus and Curator of Entomology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology The Museum of Comparative Zoology is located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is one of three museums which collectively comprise the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The director of the museum is Dr. . Wilson has achieved worldwide fame for his deep commitment to environmentalism and his eloquent advocacy of green causes. The creator of the term "biodiversity," he has warned of the dangers that plant and animal extinctions pose to the biosphere and its human inhabitants. For Wilson, environmentalism is intertwined with reverence and respect for the human species--and concern for its future. A prolific and popular author, Wilson's works include Insect Societies (I 971 ), Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975), On Human Nature (1978), Biophilia bi·o·phil·i·a n. An appreciation of life and the living world. (1984), The Ants (with Bert Holldobler, 1990), The Diversity of Life (1992), The Naturalist (1994), In Search of Nature (1996), Consilience Con`sil´i`ence n. 1. Act of concurring; coincidence; concurrence. The consilience of inductions takes place when one class of facts coincides with an induction obtained from another different class. - Whewell. : The Unity of Knowledge (1998), and The Future of Life (2002). Wilson is recognized as one of the world's foremost authorities on ants and his 1990 text is considered the definitive work on the subject. Twice the winner of the Pulitzer Prize (for On Human Nature and The Ants), Wilson is also the recipient of the Crafoord Prize of the Swedish Academy of Sciences (the equivalent of the Nobel for the fields of bioscience, geoscience, astronomy, and mathematics). He was awarded the National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 and was named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association The American Humanist Association (AHA) is an educational organization in the United States that advances Humanism. It is the original Humanist organization, and embraces secular, religious, and other manifestations of Humanist philosophy. in 1999. |
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