Edward O Wilson obituary
When the naturalist Edward O Wilson was a boy of seven, the dorsal spine of a fish that he was reeling in near his home in Mobile, Alabama, damaged his right eye. He lost the sight of that eye and subsequently suffered partial hearing loss in his teens. These disabilities led Wilson, a passionate naturalist from an early age, to focus on small organisms, particularly ants, that he could study at close range.
Observing their tiny worlds led him to a global vision of the importance of biological diversity in the survival of species including our own. Wilson, who has died aged 92, has been called a modern Charles Darwin for his influence as both a close observer and a unifying theorist. He was also a campaigner whose humane and elegant writings were among the first in recent times to argue that we have a moral duty to value other species, not only for their own sake but also for the sake of future human generations.
Continue reading...