THE RHETORIC OF EXPERTISE: E. O. WILSON AND SOCIOBIOLOGY

The New York Review of …, 1979

Public Administration Review, 2018

Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management , 2017

Biology and Philosophy, 1986

Edward 0. Wilson's forays into human sociobiology have been the target of persistent, vehement attack by his Harvard colleague in evolutionary biology, Richard C. Lewontin. Through examination of existing "documents in the case", together with in-depth personal interviews of Wilson, Lewontin, and other biologists, the reasons for Wilson's stance and Lewontin's criticisms are uncovered. It is argued that the dispute is not primarily personally or politically motivated, but involves a conflict between long-term scientificcum-moral agendas, with the "reductionist program" as a key issue. It is concluded that it is in the interest of both disputants to keep the controversy alive.

International Socialism 180, 2023

Jane Basse by David Graeber and David Wengrow, published in a recent issue of this tt’s critique of The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity journal, is very welcome, and I agree with her basic conclusions.1 However, I would like to make a few additions to her criticisms. I would also like to register a problem with any reliance on the sociobiology of anthropologist Christopher Boehm.

The Skeptic, 2015

Professor Tom Nichols, a US national security expert wrote last year about the ‘death of expertise’; a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of divisions between professionals and amateurs, teachers and students, knowers and wonderers – between those with any expertise in an area and those with none at all. He sees this situation as not only a rejection of knowledge, but also the processes of knowledge acquisition – a rejection of science and other pursuits of rationality. So how did it all come to this sorry state of affairs? I think that there are basically four contributing factors: the blurring of facts and opinions; a misunderstanding of democracy; a misunderstanding of the Argument from Authority; and the dissipation of media accountability.

Biology and Philosophy, 1992

Homicide, Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 1988, 344 pp., $20.95 [referred to below as Hi.

There are dozens of reviews of Edward O. Wilson’s recent two books, The Social Conquest of Earth (2012) and The Meaning of Human Existence (2014), some by distinguished biologists. The intent and focus of this review is different. As a life-long activist for radical social change and an ecological socialist, I wish to see what can be learned from Wilson’s work to advance these political projects.

Science and Culture, 1998