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| On Human Nature | 
| Author: Edward O. Wilson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $20.50
Buy New: $17.31
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New (22) from $17.31
Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 16580
Media: Paperback
Edition: 25th Anniversary Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 284
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 6.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 0674016386
Dewey Decimal Number: 304.5
EAN: 9780674016385
ASIN: 0674016386
Publication Date: October 18, 2004
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| Customer Reviews:
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 A very interesting book. March 20, 2008
E. O. Wilson is an excellent scientist and writer. His book is very informative, yet still very well written, and it held my attention to the end.
head or tail? can you control the human nature using so complex technology? January 29, 2008
Wilson's take-on the human nature sometimes approaches to reductionism and biological determism but he draws a delicate line leaving HN unpredictable and complex enough not to be manipulated.This book is probably the best in trying to explain the human behavior (sex, altruism,religion..etc) in relation with genetic and cultural evolution. The latter started to evolve for some 10.000 years since human first became hunter gatherer while the former has lasted millions years. taking on each main topic briefly Wilson have targeted layman and thus simplified the matter to be easily digestible.
I found Steven Pinker's Blank Slate highly influenced by Wilson. Blank Slate is a good book if readers would like to read similar books.
 An important book, if a bit outdated nowadays... April 24, 2007
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
An oldie but a goodie. Published in 1978, On Human Nature completes Wilson's self-declared "trilogy" (The Insect Societies, 1971, and Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, 1975) that proposes the scientific search for genetic explanations for social behavior in animals, including humans.
Then and now, Wilson has been criticized by both religious and atheistic folks for reducing human behavior to the cold and limiting science of genetics. However, I didn't read it that way at all. Over and Over Wilson emphasizes the complexity, and that these are merely tendencies that are indeed influenced by environment (nurture). Consider that men tend to be faster than women, but that a female Olympic runner will always beat the average man in a race.
Some people in my book club had difficulty with some of the science, but I didn't at all (partially due to a minor in anthropology, and a cultivated layman's interest in science), so I doubt the average skeptic would have difficulty reading and fully understanding this book.
While this book was rather groundbreaking when it first came out, further developments in evolutionary psychology make it look rather dated, as do passages like these:
"There is, I wish to suggest, a strong possibility that homosexuality is normal in a biological sense, that it is a distinctive beneficent behavior that evolved as an important element of early human social organization. Homosexuals may be the genetic carriers of some of mankind's rare altruistic impulses. The support for this radical hypothesis..."
Hmmm, not so radical these days. This one's even better:
"...note that it is already within our reach to build computers with the memory capacity of a human brain. Such an instrument is admittedly not very practical: it would occupy most of the space of the Empire State Building and draw down an amount of energy equal to half the output of the Grand Coulee Dam. In the 1980's, however, when new "bubble memory" elements already in the experimental stage are added, the computer might be shrunk to fill a suite of offices on one floor of the same building."
Tee hee hee.
But most of Wilson's book still have powerful and provacative messages for today's readers. The preface and first four chapters prove to be a bit of a slow setup, but the next four: "Aggression", "Sex", "Altruism", and "Religion" vividly suggest naturalistic explanations for moral and ethical tendencies in each of these areas. Wilson deals with all the juicy issues: racism, male-female roles, good-n-evil, etc. This is great stuff to memorize for debates with absolute moralists. The chapter on "Religion" is sort of a precursor to Daniel Dennet's new book Breaking the Spell. Although Wilson's ultimate conclusion is clear: no amount of naturalistic explaining of religious belief will stop people from believing. Here's a bold statement coming from a scientific humanist:
"The predisposition to religious belief is the most complex and powerful force in the human mind and in all probability an ineradicable part of human nature."
Wilson spends a good amount of time explaining and giving examples of an interesting concept called "hypertrophy" or as it is defined in the Glossary:
"The extreme development of a preexisting structure. The elephant's tusk, for example, represents the hypertophic enlargement and change in shape through evolution of a tooth that originally had an ordinary form. In this book it is suggested that most kinds of human social behavior are hypertrophic forms of original, simpler responses that were of more direct adaptive advantage in hunter-gatherer and primitively agricultural societies."
It is fascinating, to say the least, to read about the enslavement of women compared to an elephant's tusk (hypertrophy via genetic tendency plus extreme cultural exaggeration). Almost as cool as seeing human self-sacrifice compared with that of bees and wasps.
Thought provoking in every page August 21, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
It is rare that I read a book which makes me stop and think at every page. Littered with deep insights and interesting information, and still an easy read. E.O. Wilson projects a briliant mind that knows how to express and communicate his thoughts to any reader. Being a scientist myself (Physics), this book was a great vehicle to learn on sociobiology. Wilson has an incredible ability to provide just enough facts to support his ideas in a clear and economical style. I wish more scientist would know how to write like him. A pleasure from beginning to end.
 Thinking about how we think. March 29, 2006
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Since the discovery of DNA by Watson and Crick, a whole slew of fields have arisen in the life sciences that relate various aspects of life, its meaning, history and its manifestations, to genetics. Correspondingly, there has been a growth of related literature. This classic by E. O. Wilson is one such work. Probably one of the more widely read authors in the life sciences, this is one of the more influential and widely read books by him. In short, this book provides explanations for various human behaviors by examining how they help to advance the gene pool of both the individual manifesting the behavior, and the species itself. As such, culture, religion, language, government, and free will itself are all brought under the domain and hence pressures of human evolution. The book is itself quite easy to read for both scientists and non-scientists. Yet it is difficult to read in that at times the book mixes commentary with opinion with fact. Not a standard textbook this is. It reads more like an introduction to a new way of thinking... about how humans think! In all a recommended book for anyone who ever pondered the meaning of it all.
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