Genesis: On the Deep Origin of Societies

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Asserting that religious creeds and philosophical questions can be reduced to purely genetic and evolutionary components, and that the human body and mind have a physical base obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry, Genesis demonstrates that the only way for us to fully understand human behaviour is to study the evolutionary histories of nonhuman species. Of these, Wilson demonstrates that at least seventeen - among them the African naked mole rat and the sponge-dwelling shrimp - have been found to have advanced societies based on altruism and cooperation. Whether writing about midges who 'dance about like acrobats' or schools of anchovies who protectively huddle 'to appear like a gigantic fish, or proposing that human society owes a debt of gratitude to 'postmenopausal grandmothers' and 'childless homosexuals,' Genesis is a pithy yet pathbreaking work of evolutionary theory filled with the lyrical biological and humanistic observations for which Wilson is known.Asserting that religious creeds and philosophical questions can be reduced to purely genetic and evolutionary components, and that the human body and mind have a physical base obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry, Genesis demonstrates that the only way for us to fully understand human behaviour is to study the evolutionary histories of nonhuman species. Of these, Wilson demonstrates that at least seventeen - among them the African naked mole rat and the sponge-dwelling shrimp - have been found to have advanced societies based on altruism and cooperation. Whether writing about midges who 'dance about like acrobats' or schools of anchovies who protectively huddle 'to appear like a gigantic fish, or proposing that human society owes a debt of gratitude to 'postmenopausal grandmothers' and 'childless homosexuals,' Genesis is a pithy yet pathbreaking work of evolutionary theory filled with the lyrical biological and humanistic observations for which Wilson is known.
Edward O. Wilson is widely recognized as one of the world's pre-eminent biologists and naturalists. The author of more than twenty books, including Consilience, The Diversity of Life, The Social Conquest of Earth, The Meaning of Human Existence and Letters to a Young Scientist, Wilson is a Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, he lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.