A bit underwhelmed, considering the quality of Wilson's other books. The main thesis is that human evolution proceeded through a combination of individual selection and group selection - the former in the classical mode of evolution, and the latter through competition between groups based on the degree to which they encourage altruism, cooperation and unity for the social good. Parts of the book are an extended polemic against the prevailing orthodoxy of kin selection or inclusive fitness, which...

So I read a book on evolution of the body, a symmetrical body, from the larval stage of sea squirts - Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA. I read about the development, the evolution, of our bodies from fish - again, Neil Shubin, Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA. Then how the universe began and our earth came into being and evolved into the planet we know and love, and how the forces of t...

In this book Dr. Wilson has created an incredibly positive portrait of the human family: we have prospered because we have learned to work together.E. O. Wilson is an expert on ants, and in the 1970s popularized the theory of kin selection in his book Sociobiology. This theory was an attempt to explain why certain organisms form social groups at the cost to an individual’s survival. Why do worker bees give up the ability to reproduce, for example? This seems to fly in the face of Darwin’s theory...

When I was a teenager, I read Gilgamesh. One of my parents had a battered paperback copy from college. It was revelatory. From my mother, I had absorbed the notion that Death was the great Evil: Satan, the Lord of the Flies, Hitler, Doctor Strangelove, Darth Vader. Gilgamesh opened my eyes to the fact that it was her fear of death that made her assign it the role of The Evil One. It made me grok that death isn’t The Adversary. Death is an agent of change, of evolution, of growth, of ethical oppo...

On Human Nature Redux. More ants and bees this time. Better constructed but not as readable and thought-provoking as the earlier book. The stages of eusociality evolution are better explained here. Readers would do well to read On Human Nature first and complement that reading with Part III of this book, which discusses these stages in detail.The Invention of EusocialityE. O. Wilson postulates that the invention/Evolution of Eusociality in any species will consist, broadly, of a series of stages...

Wonderful book. No matter which evolutionary process you agree with, kin selection versus group selection, Wilson's ideas of competing ethical drives within man are terrifically insightful in a way that Plato, Aristotle, and everyone down their line have yet to explain as clearly.If you just read the first and last chapter of this book, you'll gain a valuable new perspective on what it means to be human.The following are some passages from E.O. Wilson's "The Social Conquest of Earth" that will g...

This is one of the most important books I've read in a long time. It lays out the fundamentals of humanity's biological and social evolution on this planet. Wilson states that humans are "by any conceivable standard...life's greatest achievement...are the mind of the biosphere, the solar system, and--who can say?--perhaps the galaxy." But we are creatures who have at once "...created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology. We thrash abou...

While he wants to answer questions like «Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going?» he sidesteps this goal often and uses the book to heavily promote his newly found belief that eusociality does evolve through group/multilevel selection instead of kin selection/inclusive fitness. The Nature publication of Nowak et al. was heavily criticized when it was published (you can find some of the replies to the original paper above the linked study). He uses his beloved ants to argue for h...

I am a fan of E.O. Wilson's writings, but this book is not quite as good as some of his others. I learned a few interesting things, but not as much as would be expected from a book of this type.The central concept in the book is "eusociality", which is the cooperative care of offspring and the cooperative division of labor. Among the animal kingdom, there are only several species of ants, bees, and termites that are truly eusocial. And, there are humans. Quite a chunk of the book goes into the b...

Evolution confuses me. A woman wondered aloud last weekend if we really descended from chimpanzees, why are there still chimpanzees? And another person thought a better question is why aren't we still evolving into another genus? We could ask the Denisova Hominidae, but they left the planet 30,000 years ago. I saw Dr. Wilson speak at MSU a couple years ago. He's engaging and smart as any five people I know, and he writes, not quite down to my level, but enough that I can glean a little of the ge...

I have a lot of respect for Wilson, but I felt this book spent unduly too much time on group selection, which happens to be Wilson’s new conviction in evolutionary theory. Group selection was in vogue for some time, then was replaced by kin selection compatible with the selfish gene theory, but now it’s back. Wilson starts the book with Paul Gaugin’s painting titled: Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Religions offer only tribal myths to answer these questions. Philosophy a...

In this book, Wilson attempts two somewhat different tasks, and generally succeeds at both, but is not perfect at either. First, he draws a broad outline of the evolution of humanity, and specifically of the evolution of human culture and social traits. Secondly, he presents an argument for the rejection of kin selection and inclusive fitness theory in favor of group selection. Below, I'll briefly outline the structure of the book, then comment on where I thought the book succeeded and where it

I've been reading a bit about the huge controversy over kin selection vs. group selection. Wilson is receiving harsh criticism over his apparent defection from his own previous ideas about kin selection, which are endorsed by nearly all evolutionary biologists. At this point, I am not entirely sure that Wilson's ideas about group selection are completely incompatible with orthodox kin selection theory. Here's a nice brief discussion of the problem: Science Creative Quarterly. An excerpt: "The de...

Narrator: Jonathan HoganDescription: Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going? In a generational work of clarity and passion, one of our greatest living scientists directly addresses these three fundamental questions of religion, philosophy, and science while “overturning the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover magazine). Refashioning the story of human evolution in a work that is certain to generate headlines, Wilson draws on...

Wow -- what a cool book! A fascinating read, start to finish.Relates the conflict we perceive within human nature as a development in evolution of the conflict between group selection and individual selection. Individuals with selfish motives and actions are more successful than those who are altruistic, but groups of altruists are much more successful than groups of selfish individuals.Touches on questions of consciousness, the development of language, art and religion. Useful for understanding...

There is one interesting and unique point made in this book:Eusocial organisms arise when there is a common, group "nest".Wilson champions the theory of "multiple level" or "group" selection.Group selection is a fine way of looking at colonies/tribes.There's a lot of info about human and ant/termite history.Cool stuff, that.1. But, in this book, Wilson goes on to put down another fine theory.He takes every opportunity to trash "kin selection" and "inclusive fitness".His criticism of kin selectio...

*A full executive-style summary of this book is available at newbooksinbrief.wordpress.comSince the dawn of self-awareness we human beings have struggled to understand ourselves. This struggle has found form in religion, philosophy, art and, most recently, science. The most pivotal turning point in science's quest to understand humanity came with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection in the mid 19th century. While the application of this theory to understand human behaviour h...

Wilson is such a poetic guy that you almost hate to disagree with him based on prose style alone. Seriously, his sentences have the sorts of graceful rhythms that you associate with British authors that have had an expensive classical education, which makes reading him enjoyable even if, as many seem to feel, he's completely wrong. This book is a typically Wilsonian exploration of the human need to find meaning in our lives that's based on biology but aims at culture. He's never liked C. P. Snow...

There are any number of lively debates within evolutionary circles, such as the pace of evolutionary change (gradualism versus punctuated equilibrium) or the level at which evolution takes place (individual versus group versus multiple levels).One of these issues is joined in this volume.Wilson says that group selection was quite prominent in human evolution from 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. In his words (2012, p. 91):"Bands and communities of bands with better combinations of cultural innovation...

There are two main takeaways from this book for me. First is that humans have evolved extraordinarily complex cooperation & collaboration strategies that include both self-ish behavior and altruistic behavior. And this conflicting mix of motivations and intentions are a result of natural selection at both the individual and group level. So are we selfish or are we altruistic? We’re both. The second takeaway is that our altruistic behavior can be director at those we consider to be in our group,