Virtuous E.O. Wilson

I don't remember reading this 2009 E.O.Wilson's interview by Alice Dreger and now while reading this, it makes sense why I admire him so much.  He went through so many obstacles and conflicts though out his life but he never lost his sense of civility. Thank you sir!

Alice Dreger: I know you’ve spoken about it many times before, but I would like to begin by asking you about the session at the 1978 AAAS [American Association for the Advancement of Science] conference during which you were rushed on the stage and a protester emptied a pitcher of water onto your head. By all accounts, the talk you then gave was very measured. How on Earth were you able to remain so calm after being physically assaulted?

Edward O. Wilson: I think I may have been the only scientist in modern times to be physically attacked for an idea. The idea of a biological human nature was abhorrent to the demonstrators and was, in fact, too radical at the time for a lot of people—probably most social scientists and certainly many on the far-Left. They just accepted as dogma the blank-slate view of the human mind—that everything we do and think is due to contingency, rather than based upon instinct like bodily functions and the urge to keep reproducing. These people believe that everything we do is the result of historical accidents, the events of history, the development of personality through experience.

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As for me, I don’t know why, but I just get calm under a lot of stress. I’ve been in that sort of stressful situation many times, especially in the field. I started thinking to myself, this is probably going to be an historical moment, and it is very interesting. I wasn’t in the least doubt that my science was correct. I knew this was a kind of aberration. I understood the source because I knew the people who had been the chief thinkers, the ideological leaders. An astonishingly good percentage of them were on the faculty at Harvard. I wasn’t concerned this would come to anything in the long term.

So, someone found a paper towel and I dried my head. As soon as things settled down, I just read my talk. I knew things were going to work out—there was so much evidence accumulated already for a somewhat programmed human brain. By then, it was already coming from many directions, including genetics and neuroscience. There was no doubt about where things would go. There may be hold-outs but the inevitable conclusion from neuroscience and anthropology and genetics is for this way of thinking. [American anthropologist] Nap[oleon] Chagnon was present and he was certainly a leader in thinking about human nature and how valuable it is, and what its motivations are, by studying groups like the Yanomamö.

I knew history was on my side. I was young enough that I thought I would live through a good part of it. I was annoyed! But I wasn’t under stress in an extreme way. Before going home, I went to the next session, at which an anthropologist made the mistake of stating that I believe every cultural difference has a genetic basis, so that I am a racist. Of course, I rebutted that, but that was the kind of thing being exchanged at that meeting.

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Alice Dreger: Nap is finishing up his memoir, but I’m not sure he is going to situate his story in that larger context, of what happens in cases like that.

Edward O. Wilson: I’m glad you’re working on this. It all needs to be put it in a larger context. That would be a wonderful thing to do. I don’t know if you want to come right up to the Bush administration and the Evangelical advances, the know-nothings’ attacks on science. We have to decide what to do in these situations. I chose to write The Creation. In that book, I set out not to confound the fundamentalists—that’s been done a thousand times, virtually without effect—but rather to call on them for help. That had far more effect on Evangelicals than a hundred volumes by someone like Richard Dawkins condemning religion. I just brushed that aside, said I was a secular humanist, and began with a letter to an imaginary pastor. I said we are not going to save life on Earth unless science and religion can work together.

Alice Dreger: One of the things I really admire about your work is how you try to be constructive. I think that is so much more effective than mere criticism—you work on really moving people to act, to go beyond long-term divisions to ask how we can get somewhere.

Edward O. Wilson: I think that work has been very productive. It helped move Evangelicals more decisively into conservation. Once they see what they call “the Left,” the environmentalists and the scientists—what Rush Limbaugh, that expert on climate change, has called “the granola-crunching tree-huggers”—are not necessarily the dangerous threat they thought, they are not as aggressive. I understand Evangelicals well. They circle the wagons, but they are afraid of all these happenings. Once they see they could form a non-threatening alliance for a transcendent purpose, then they could move forward. That’s why I wrote the book. You have 42 percent of the American people who might be rallied for the environment, particularly for conservation. So, that’s made a lot of progress. I was invited to a meeting with the heads of the Mormon Church, and we met at the president’s office.

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Alice Dreger: I have noticed that about you and your work. You tend to be productive and civil. Personality seems to matter a lot in these controversies. To use a term that some anthropologists or psychologists use, I would say that it is “characterological.” Some people are, well, shall we say, warriors, and that makes them more likely to get into scrapes. You tend to try to be conciliatory, productive, and especially civil.

Edward O. Wilson: I like to say I’m a southerner. I felt somehow it was bred into me that I should be a gentleman and I expect others to be the same. But I quickly learned, as I say in The Creation, that if you use moderation, and reserve, and courtesy, you’ll be the victor in any vicious fight. You also have to have the answers and the truth on your side. But I felt like that’s the winning strategy. I think it is an honest strategy, too. I felt the Evangelicals are good people, and I’ve always asked myself how to deal with people like this who I like in every respect. They’re smart, they’re good, and there is a certain area that says “keep out.” How do you handle that?

Alice Dreger: Imagine for a moment that you are watching a younger version of yourself struggle with a younger version of Gould and Lewontin. How would you advise that younger version of you?

Edward O. Wilson: I think I would tell him to ignore it. Pay attention, I mean, and respond if there is some really scurrilous thing being said. But, as much as possible, ignore it, and keep working, and you’ll win in the end. I know it isn’t easy during fights. I always said to myself, “Don’t get into a pissing contest with a skunk.” If you ask me what I most resent about that period looking back now, I think the answer is the amount of time I wasted. I spent countless hours talking with journalists who were writing stories about all this. They’d come to me and say, “Well, Professor Lewontin just said so-and-so, Professor Gould just said so-and-so.” Or, “I’ve read in the latest thing that they’ve said this. What do you say to that?” I felt that I couldn’t sit by and let them declare me to be a racist and a proto-Nazi. I couldn’t just say, “No comment.” So, I wasted enormous amounts of energy and time I could have used for something much more valuable. So, my advice would be, this too shall pass. Ignore it as much as you can. Conduct yourself with dignity and with courtesy and let it pass.