33 pages • 1 hour read
Edward O. WilsonOn Human Nature
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: The Encroachment of Genetics on the Social Sciences
When Edward O. Wilson began his research in the field of sociobiology, it was a relatively new field with quite a number of detractors. The main critique against sociobiology was that its synthesis of the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences was inappropriate (academically speaking), and that the field was pseudoscience (as biology and the study of genetics were being framed as able to answer questions that the humanities had long considered their own).
Wilson was an expert in myrmecology, the study of ants, not anthropology, sociology, or even philosophy—academic fields that had long considered the question of human nature as belonging to their own studies. In presenting sociobiology as the principal lens through which the human species should be viewed, many specialists and academics considered the field both presumptuous and false. However, since the publication of On Human Nature, the academic community has developed a new appreciation for Wilson’s theses and findings, especially in his insistence that neurobiology has an important part to play in addressing questions of cultural evolution and human behavior.
Sociohistorical Context: The Problem of Eugenics in a Post-War Milieu
On Human Nature was published in 1978, just a few decades after the close of World War II. Naturally, on account of the atrocities inflicted on Jews and other minority groups under the Nazi regime, any mention of the topic of eugenics was bound to cause controversy. One of the principal goals of the Nazi regime was to engage in radical ethnic cleansing in order to assert the goals and rights of the “Aryan” race. This went hand in hand with medical experiments and a program of eugenics that sought to elevate one conglomeration of physical and genetic traits to the detriment—and extermination—of all others.
The majority of countries and nations judged this aspect of Nazi ideology to be particularly abhorrent, and rightly condemned the practice. In Wilson’s text, however, much time is spent showing how human nature is guided by genetics and inherited traits, and so questions about amplifying or eradicating certain traits are raised. To Wilson, there is a certain kind of eugenics that would be beneficial and desirable for human societies; furthermore, medical technology is now on the cusp of being able to alter the genetic makeup of humans.
With medical technology progressing as it is, humankind needs to ask the question of where such power will direct itself. While genetic determinism is undeniable in the sense that one’s physical, biological existence is determined by inherited material, society can choose its own path of cultural evolution—deciding which behaviors it will endorse, which it will tolerate, and which it will allow to pass away. The reality of eugenics—long embraced without controversy by dog breeders and livestock holders—is now a possibility for humans. The controversy is whether or not this is a desirable, ethical pursuit, as it also has the potential to perpetuate ableism and racism.
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