The first time I read a book by Edward O. Wilson, I was as an undergraduate student.
Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize author, was already a world renowned biologist at the time. I was interested in animal behavior and he was interested in ants.
Today, Wilson is still considered one of the 20th century’s greatest biologists and he is still enamored with ants.
His most recent book, The Meaning of Human Existence, however, is a collection of essays that try to answer the following questions:
- Why are we, as humans, the way we are?
- And, what does it matter?
He explores, with wonder, the dominance of microbes, humans’ genetically-based tension of individual selfishness vs group (or tribal) altruism, religion, the possibility of life on other planets and the concept of free will.
But, the reason I recommend this collection of essays, which is a National Book Award finalist, is because of Wilson’s repeated arguments supporting the role of the humanities in this century.
If the campus rumor is correct, Ohio State will be reexamining its general education curricular requirements next year. If so, it would be well to consider Wilson’s science vs humanities observations. He believes that scientific discoveries will peak and flatten out this century, but that the humanities will expand beyond everything that history has yet given us. He also believes this will be to the betterment of life for all of humankind.
Science, Wilson says, only explains why humans happened but the humanities explain what make humans who they are. Food for thought whether or not you agree with him.