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| On Human Nature | 
| Author: Edward O. Wilson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $22.00
Buy New: $18.58
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New (24) from $18.58
Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 55269
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
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 An important book, if a bit outdated nowadays... April 24, 2007
15 out of 15 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.
Thought-provoking, enduringly valuable, & highly recommended March 7, 2005
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
If Edward O. Wilson's On Human Nature sounds familiar, it's because this printing represents the 25th anniversary of the original classic that gave birth to the field of evolutionary psychology. Adding a new preface to this edition, Wilson reflects on how he came to write the book which would led to a political, religious and scientific uproar. A seminal, groundbreaking, informative, thought-provoking, enduringly valuable, and highly recommended read.
About "On Human Nature" by Edward O. Wilson August 29, 2004
21 out of 23 found this review helpful
About "On Human Nature" by Edward O. Wilson.
Wilson considers "On Human Nature" (1978) to be part of a trilogy that began with "Insect Societies" (1971) and includes his "Sociobiology - The New Syntheses" (1975). He describes the inception of this third book of the trilogy as follows:
"The aftermath of the publication of Sociobiology led me to read more widely on human behavior and drew me to many seminars and written exchanges with social scientists. I became more persuaded than ever that the time has come to close that famous gap between the two cultures, and that general sociobiology, which is simply the extension of population biology and evolutionary theory, is the appropriate instrument for the effort. On Human Nature is an exploration of that thesis."
About the book itself he says:
"To address human behavior systematically is to make a potential topic of every corridor in the labyrinth of the human mind, and hence to consider not just the social sciences but the humanities, including philosophy and the process of scientific discovery itself. Consequently, 'On Human Nature' is not a work of science; it is a work about science, and about how far natural sciences can penetrate into human behavior before they will be transformed into something new."
This is a theme he was later to pursue also in his "Consilience - The Unity of Knowledge" (1998). Discussing the great branches of knowledge in it he says: "The greatest enterprse of the mind has always been and always will be the attempted linkage of the sciences and the humanities. The ongoing fragmentation of knowledge and resulting chaos in philosophy are not reflections of the real world but artifacts of scholarsip." I find myself in total agreement with that. "Consilience" subsequently inspired the New York Academy of Sciences to organize a three day conference entitled "Unity of Knowledge - The Convergence of Natural and Human Science" in June 2000. Wilson was the keynote speaker and when it came time for questions, the first question out of the box was about his support for eugenics. Marxists have always been trying to pin that label on him ever since "Sociobiology" came out. This is part of the ongoing Marxist attack on Wilson and sociobiology which he himself referred to as "The aftermath of the publication of Sociobiology..." The full account of that attack which has lasted more than a quarter century and is still going strong is found in "Defenders of the Truth - The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond" by Ullica Segerstrale. She was originally against him, even attended meetings of the Sociobiology Study Group as an observer, but has come to feel that Wilson has been vindicated.
"On Human Nature" covers aggressioin, sex, altruism and religion as well as heredity, development and emergent behavior brilliantly. He is extremely persuasive and has a very humane approach to these topics. To find out about him as a person you can read his memoir "Naturalist." And for those who truly desire a more in-depth analysis I recommend that they also take in Wilson's "Consilience" and Segerstrale's "Defenders of the Truth."
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