In an interview on Favourite Science Books

Your next choice, On Human Nature by Edward O Wilson, has been described as one of the most important non-fiction books ever written.

I wouldn’t argue with that description. When I was selecting this book it was a bit of a struggle, because I am a big Ed Wilson fan. I have met him and had a fascinating two-hour conversation with him. I have read about 10 books of his, so I had to struggle to choose because there were a number of great candidates.

On Human Nature is an absolutely fascinating book, in which a biologist applies the laws of nature to understanding things like the urge for religion and the impulse for altruism. He writes fundamental things about how we work and tries to explore the biology of these things, which are so central to our understanding of human beings but which seldom come up in the field of biology. Wilson has such an interesting mind, and also is a wonderful writer. Actually he is the only writer to have won two general non-fiction Pulitzer prizes. His style is almost poetic. There is a real beauty to the way he writes, and a love of his subject that comes through.

What specific aspects of human nature is Wilson interested in?

I personally have had interesting conversations with him about the impulse to violence. He’s a pacifist – opposed to violence – but he is very misunderstood on this because he also holds the belief that humans are hard-wired for violence. He talks about what he calls the natural fallacy. The natural fallacy is that because something is imprinted in nature, it necessarily means that that’s the way things ought to be. Like Wilson, I couldn’t disagree more. If you followed the natural fallacy logically, we shouldn’t even wear clothes because that’s not in nature.

Wilson says that we have to evolve our thinking about violence, that we can’t afford it – especially with the weapons we have. He’s an ant expert, and he says that if ants had nuclear weapons, the world would last two seconds. So because humans do have nuclear weapons, we can’t be thinking like ants.