Biophilia

by Edward O. Wilson

Overview

Biophilia is Edward O. Wilson's most personal book, an evocation of his own response to nature and an eloquent statement of the conservation ethic. Wilson argues that our natural affinity for life—biophilia—is the very essence of our humanity and binds us to all other living species.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674074422
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1986
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	457,164
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 9.12(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Edward O. Wilson was Pellegrino University Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University. In addition to two Pulitzer Prizes (one of which he shares with Bert Hölldobler), Wilson has won many scientific awards, including the National Medal of Science and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Table of Contents

• 1. Prologue
• 2. Bernhardsdorp
• 3. The Superoganism
• 4. The Time Machine
• 5. The Bird of Paradise
• 6. The Poetic Species
• 7. The Serpent
• 8. The Right Place
• 9. The Conservation Ethic
• 10. Surinam
• Reading Notes
• Acknowledgments

Editorial Reviews

E. O. Wilson is the entomologist Curator of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. His science writing for the general public has won him the Pulitzer Prize and his scientific publications have won him the highest honors American science can bestow. He is well equipped to engage a subject dear to nature-lovers which until now has not been identified as a species trait—biophilia. The freshness of Wilson’s approach lies in its freedom from the obsessions of the environmentalist movement… While he shares the conservationist ethic of environmentalists, and seeks to impart its practical imperatives, he eschews cultism… Let this highly readable book then be commended to all biophiliacs and technocrats.

Times Literary Supplement - Hiram Caton

Wilson’s own empathy with things illuminates these essays with fresh perceptions of everyday matters… They are masterpieces of prose style… Wilson moves fluidly among minute observations of life forms ranging from leaf-cutter ants to birds of paradise, artfully pausing for a philosophical reflection here and a folksy anecdote there.

Los Angeles Times - John Wilkes

Biophilia is an immensely readable book. Wilson is a master storyteller, skillful at evoking exotic scenes.

Washington Post Book World

A fine memoir by one of America’s foremost evolutionary biologists…erudite, elegant, and poetic. E. O. Wilson defines biophilia as ‘the innate tendency [in human beings] to focus on life and lifelike process. To an extent still undervalued in philosophy and religion, our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it, hopes rise on its currents.’ Scientifically demonstrating this human propensity would be a task beyond the scope of today’s biology, and Wilson wisely eschews that course. Instead, he relies on his own experiences and feelings as a field biologist, cleverly interweaving them with the facts, history, and philosophy of evolutionary biology and an eclectic set of cultural observations.

Natural History - Paul R. Ehrlich

There’s more to this unbuttoned and intellectually playful book than its plea for a conservation of ethic and the preservation of animal species in all their diversity. We get, for example, several autobiographical glimpses into the background of Professor Wilson… We see Professor Wilson as a boy growing up in the Florida panhandle… Elsewhere he astonishes us with a description of the mating dance of the male Emperor of Germany bird of paradise, and the degree of genetic congruity between pygmy chimpanzees and Homo sapiens.

New York Times - Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

Wilson's own empathy with things illuminates these essays with fresh perceptions of everyday matters…They are masterpieces of prose style.

Los Angeles Times

A fine memoir by one of America's foremost evolutionary biologists…erudite, elegant, and poetic

Natural History

E. O. Wilson is the entomologist Curator of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. His science writing for the general public has won him the Pulitzer Prize and his scientific publications have won him the highest honors American science can bestow. He is well equipped to engage a subject dear to nature-lovers which until now has not been identified as a species trait—biophilia. The freshness of Wilson's approach lies in its freedom from the obsessions of the environmentalist movement...While he shares the conservationist ethic of environmentalists, and seeks to impart its practical imperatives, he eschews cultism...Let this highly readable book then be commended to all biophiliacs and technocrats.
— Hiram Caton

Times Literary Supplement

There's more to this unbuttoned and intellectually playful book than its plea for a conservation of ethic and the preservation of animal species in all their diversity. We get, for example, several autobiographical glimpses into the background of Professor Wilson...We see Professor Wilson as a boy growing up in the Florida panhandle...Elsewhere he astonishes us with a description of the mating dance of the male Emperor of Germany bird of paradise, and the degree of genetic congruity between pygmy chimpanzees and Homo Sapiens.
— Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

New York Times

Although [these essays] are masterpieces of prose style, they more effectively illustrate Wilson's own biophilia than his contention that biophilia exists as a general human trait.
—The Los Angeles Times

John Wilkes