Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Matthew sent me a tweet this morning saying that Edward O. Wilson, known to all of us as “Ed”, died yesterday at at 92. He died at the same age as my mentor—Ed’s nemesis Dick Lewontin—as both were born in 1929. There’s a short obituary by Carl Zimmer that you can read at the NYT … Continue reading E. O. Wilson died
If you’ve been following the fracas about biologist E. O. Wilson and the intimations that he was a racist or at least friendly with racists, you’ll know that there are at least three articles accusing him either explicitly or implicitly of racism (see here, here, and here). Wilson’s also been defended by many of his … Continue reading Michael Shermer and Richard Dawkins: In defense of E. O. Wilson
There’s a new article in Science for the People magazine by Stacy Farina and Matthew Gibbons, which argues that E. O. Wilson was a racist. This is a different, more serious, and far better documented article than the Scientific American hit job by Monica McLemore, whose “research” apparently resulted from reading the last chapter of Sociobiology, … Continue reading More accusations that E. O. Wilson was a racist
The accusations that biologist E. O. Wilson was a racist began with an unhinged article in Scientific American, which gave no evidence at all and, as a sign of its scholarly deficiencies, also accused Gregor Mendel of being a racist! Oh, and, based on semantics alone, it also claimed the statistical “normal distribution” was racist! … Continue reading Once again: Was E. O. Wilson a racist? His closest colleague says “no way”!
I don’t subscribe to the Times of London, so I count on my UK readers to alert me to anything interesting there. And today two of them did: Readers Pyers, who said the article below was “a superb piece”, and reader Adrian, who said this of the same piece (quoted with permission): Been following your … Continue reading Daniel Finkelstein defends E. O. Wilson (and mocks Scientific American) in the Times of London
Several readers called my attention to the new entry on Scott Aaronson’s website, which deals with the recent Scientific American op-ed about E. O. Wilson’s supposed “racism”. (You can find the original piece here. Did you know that Mendel was a racist, too?) The op-ed was execrable, and I’d hoped that Laura Helmuth, the editor-in-chief, … Continue reading Scott Aaronson hosts a guest post about the Sci Am hatchet job on E. O. Wilson
Scientific American has hit rock bottom with this new op-ed that is nothing more than a hit piece on Ed Wilson, basically calling him a racist. It is written by someone who apparently has no training in evolutionary biology, though she says she “intimately familiarized [herself] with Wilson’s work and his dangerous ideas on what … Continue reading Scientific American does an asinine hit job on E. O. Wilson, calling him a racist
UPDATE: David Sloan Wilson has also published the letter on his site “This View of Life”. ______________ A bunch of people in evolution and genetics took exception to an op-ed in Scientific American by Monica McLemore, which called E. O. Wilson a racist just days after he died. The author, who apparently had almost no … Continue reading Our attempt to correct the record about E. O. Wilson: a joint letter to Scientific American—which, of course, they rejected.
