The war of words between the biologists EO Wilson and Richard Dawkins has reignited after the Harvard professor described his Oxford counterpart as a “journalist”.
In an interview with Evan Davis on BBC2’s Newsnight to promote his latest book, Wilson was asked about his differing view of natural selection compared with that of Dawkins.
Wilson answered: “There is no dispute between me and Richard Dawkins and there never has been, because he’s a journalist, and journalists are people that report what the scientists have found and the arguments I’ve had have actually been with scientists doing research.”
Shortly after the programme was broadcast, Dawkins tweeted: “I greatly admire EO Wilson & his huge contributions to entomology, ecology, biogeography, conservation, etc. He’s just wrong on kin selection.”
A second tweet said: “Anybody who thinks I’m a journalist who reports what other scientists think is invited to read The Extended Phenotype.”
He was referring to his 1982 book, a sequel to his previous work, The Selfish Gene. The later book is considered by the high-profile Darwinist to be his principal contribution to evolutionary theory.
Wilson was asked about his current views on the concept of a selfish gene, to which he replied: “I have abandoned it and I think most serious scientists working on it have abandoned it. Some defenders may be out there, but they have been relatively or almost totally silenced since our major paper came out.”
The paper he referred to was a 2010 study published in Nature entitledThe evolution of eusociality.
Dawkins later posted a third tweet with a link to his devastating Prospect magazine review of Wilson’s 2012 book The Social Conquest of Earth, which he described as “a brief account of EO Wilson’s misunderstanding of kin selection theory”.
The final paragraphs read: “Edward Wilson has made important discoveries of his own. His place in history is assured, and so is Hamilton’s. Please do read Wilson’s earlier books, including the monumental The Ants, written jointly with Bert Hölldobler (yet another world expert who will have no truck with group selection).
“As for the book under review, the theoretical errors I have explained are important, pervasive and integral to its thesis in a way that renders it impossible to recommend. To borrow from Dorothy Parker, this is not a book to be tossed lightly aside. It should be thrown with great force. And sincere regret.”
Prospect offered Wilson a right of reply, which he took. His comments concluded: “If science depended on rhetoric and polls, we would still be burning objects with phlogiston [a mythical fire-like element] and navigating with geocentric maps.”
