America's greatest biologist has left us

It seems that a lot of people in America are mourning the passing of John Madden--a notable football coach and television commentator. People across the globe, however, are mourning the loss of E. O. Wilson--who was likely the greatest American biologist who ever lived. If you only know the name and a little else about Wilson, I strongly recommend that you begin (as I did several decades ago) with his extremely readable autobiography...more about that in a bit.

I recommend that if you click on my videoclip, do expand it (lower righthand corner) and enjoy. I filmed this little epic on the steppes of northern Neuquen, in the heart of Patagonia perhaps two weeks ago in early December. Little realizing the King of the ant kingdom would soon have passed away.

This little video is meant to honor Wilson--the world's foremost authority on Formicidae (ants), Do find a copy of Naturalist, which begins with a bang quite literally (he blinded himself in one eye as a child while fishing) and goes on to chart a life of extraordinary wonder.

Wilson almost alone upheld Biology from being altogether dethroned by Microbiology in the wake of the decoding of DNA. Not that I discount the importance of genetic studies (which in a mere decade or two transformed almost every University Biology department in North America into something virtually unrecognizable to Darwin, say). Wilson's breakthrough achievements in taxonomy, ethology, ecology, sociobiology (which he more or less invented), myrmecology, evolutionary biology and biogeography (not to mention his forays into human psychology and philosophy) have helped place genetics into a proper perspective as a powerful but not omnipotent tool in the biological arsenal. He singlehandedly restored the balance of these other facets of biology that were practically swept under the carpet in our rush to be scientifically fashionable and "up to date".  Naturalist shows just how Wilson accomplished this. America's willingness to trash the old and pant after novelty has never been better illustrated.

It's been pointed out that if there were a Nobel Prize in Biology, he would have received it more than once.  Or even twice.

Best of all, Wilson wrote clear, resonant prose. He was a hell of a story teller. 

Requiscat in pace, Edward Osborne. And thank you!