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The Social Conquest of Earth
 
 

The Social Conquest of Earth [Kindle Edition]

Edward O. Wilson
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Review

Pretty much anything Wilson writes is well worth reading, and his latest, The Social Conquest of Earth, is no exception Read the master biologist himself in this marvelous book... -- --Michael Shermer

"Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going Those famous questions, inscribed by Paul Gauguin in his giant Tahitian painting of 1897, introduce The Social Conquest of Earth. Their choice proclaims Edward O Wilson 's ambitions for his splendid book, in which he sums up 60 distinguished years of research into the evolution of human beings and social insects. --Financial Times

What Wilson ends up doing is so profound that the last eight chapters could stand alone as a separate book, because what he ends up doing is no less than defining human nature itself. --Robert Knight, Washington Independent Review of Books

The Social Conquest of Earth is one of the supreme examples of evolutionist writing --Literary Review

Product Description

New York Times Bestseller

From the most celebrated heir to Darwin comes a groundbreaking book on evolution, the summa work of Edward O. Wilson's legendary career.

Sparking vigorous debate in the sciences, The Social Conquest of Earth upends “the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover). Refashioning the story of human evolution, Wilson draws on his remarkable knowledge of biology and social behavior to demonstrate that group selection, not kin selection, is the premier driving force of human evolution. In a work that James D. Watson calls “a monumental exploration of the biological origins of the human condition,” Wilson explains how our innate drive to belong to a group is both a “great blessing and a terrible curse” (Smithsonian). Demonstrating that the sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts are fundamentally biological in nature, the renowned Harvard University biologist presents us with the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition and why it resulted in our domination of the Earth’s biosphere.

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 3673 KB
  • Print Length: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Liveright; 1 edition (2 April 2012)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B0074V3712
  • Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
  • X-Ray: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #78,902 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The dicovery of altruism 14 April 2012
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
E. O. Wilson has ignited a valuable debate about how altruism evolved in humans. As an insect specialist he more or less put 'inclusive fitness' or 'Hamilton's rule' on the map as natural selection's preferred mechanism for the evolution of altruism. Then in a famous 2010 article in Nature, and now in The Social Conquest of Earth he says that he was completely wrong and that 'group selection' is how altruism evolved in both eusocial insects and humanity. By group selection Wilson means war to the death between groups - 'total war'. This idea has been around a long time; Darwin believed it, talking off the top of his head without any archaeological evidence about what happened during the two million years of humanity's evolution, and misled by an idea ('Pangenesis') that learned experience was passed down from generation to generation. Recently Samuel Bowles published a paper in Science showing mathematically that warfare could preserve a fragile form of altruism if a mutation for it occurred. Wilson now makes the startling claim that because Bowles's archaeological data shows warfare 'from the beginning of Neolithic times', therefore 'tribal aggressiveness thus goes back well beyond Neolithic times, but no one as yet can say exactly how far'. He then goes on to speculate that because the common chimpanzee is warlike 'there is a good chance' that tribal aggressiveness goes back six million years. The reality is that once you look beyond inclusive fitness (which is one way that altruism can evolve in some creatures) there are many ways that altruism can evolve in humans. People love the idea that warfare delivers benefits, possibly because it reassuringly exorcises war's horrors and apparent inevitability in the modern world.... Read more ›
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36 of 40 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars The anthill society 10 May 2012
Format:Hardcover
"The Social Conquest of Earth" is Edward O. Wilson's latest book, published this year. Wilson is a leading myrmecologist who went on to become the grand old man of sociobiology.

In my opinion, Wilson's book is over-hyped by the publisher. It's interesting, to be sure - you can take it from me, I'm a critic of sociobiology, while being somewhat fond of ants! However, the book is to a large extent simply a summary of Wilson's earlier books and scientific papers (which he often references). I consider it to be an introduction to Wilson, rather than some kind of dramatic, super-genial work on par with Darwin's "The Origin of Species".

[GROUP SELECTION AMONG INSECTS]

The main point of the book is to rehabilitate the concept of group selection, 36 years after "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins made the public aware of its burial by the Neo-Darwinists. Wilson no longer claims that W. D. Hamilton's ideas about kin selection can explain the evolution of eusociality among insects. Instead, he believes that complex insect societies (e.g. among hymenopterans) are a product of individual selection of queens, with the worker-castes being a kind of robotic extension of the queen's phenotype. There's also group selection targeting the entire colony. The chapters on insects are rather technical, but if Wilson is right, I wonder why inclusive-fitness selection was upheld for so long. Apparently, the concept never worked for termites, which evolved eusociality independently of the hymenopterans. According to Wilson, the concept didn't work very well for hymenopterans either, to the point where "kin" was defined in a completely arbitrary manner.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars A hero falls from grace 25 Jan 2013
Format:Hardcover
Wilson has always been one of my heros--not only an outstanding biologist, but one of the tiny and vanishing minority of intellectuals who at least dares to hint at the truth others studiously avoid.

I found sections with the usual incisive commentary (though nothing really new or interesting if you have read his other works and are up on biology in general) in the often stilted prose that is his hallmark, but was quite surprised that the core of the book is his rejection of inclusive fitness (which has been a mainstay of evolutionary biology for over 40 years) in favor of group selection. One assumes that coming from him and published in major peer reviewed journals like Nature, it must be a substantial advance in spite of the fact that I knew group selection had always been nearly universally rejected due to its basic conflict with our understanding of evolutionary biology.

I have read all the reviews here and on the net and many have good comments but the one I most wanted to see was that by renowned science writer and evolutionary biologist
Richard Dawkins. Unlike most of those by professionals, which are in journals only available to those with access to a university, it is readily available on the net.

Sadly one finds a devastating rejection of the book and some of the most trenchant commentary on a scientific colleague I have ever seen from Dawkins--exceeding anything I recall
even in his many exchanges with late and unlamented demagogue and pseudoscientist Stephan Jay Gould. Although Gould was infamous for his personal attacks on his Harvard colleague
Wilson, Dawkins notes that much of this book reminds one uncomfortably of Goulds frequent lapses into "bland, unfocussed ecumenicalism".
... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Ant-tastic!
Those who challenge EO Wilson's slow conversion to group selection over kin selection, obviously hate this erudite ode to eusociality, and rightly so. Read more
Published 3 months ago by The Outsider
5.0 out of 5 stars Know yourself
A very refreshing and enjoyable book. I really like the way the author mixes the arts into a science book. Read more
Published 4 months ago by M. D. Holley
4.0 out of 5 stars Should be required reading
Written to be approachable and understood as widely as possible. This is a humane and thoughtful attempt to synthesize the branches of research into our history as a species and... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Rambling Sid Rumpo
4.0 out of 5 stars The past and future of social organisms
At first, Wilson seems very hard-headed and technical with his intricate analysis of how social life evolved. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Brian Griffith
5.0 out of 5 stars Will Humans Evolve?
Ed Wilson writes compellingly about the evolution of humans and their impact on other species. He is an authoritative scientist who has studied social insects especially ants... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Moondance
5.0 out of 5 stars Eusociality rules, OK
An excellent book, supportng an idea (selection at the level of the group)which is important for the social sciences but has been trashed by a lot of apparently repectable... Read more
Published 12 months ago by John
3.0 out of 5 stars GOOD, BUT WITH SERIOUS FLAWS
Having read a number of books by Wilson, I continued to learn a lot from this one, such as his new critical views on inclusive-fitness theory and kin selection (chapter 18). Read more
Published 13 months ago by Yehezkel Dror
5.0 out of 5 stars A New History of Evolution
A narrative explaining a lot of material about anthropology and social psychology.
Dr. E.O. Wilson gives the accent of Homo sapiens from origin to present day... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Dag Stomberg
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