Fwd: Wilson rattles historians with 'bio-history' theories

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    Wilson rattles historians with 'bio-history' theories

    By Gareth Cook, Globe Staff, 1/16/2001

    http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/016/science/Wilson_rattles_historians_wit
    h_bio_history_theories+.shtml

    History is no longer just the study of war and peace, of politicians and
    economics. If the next generation of historians hopes to understand the
    driving forces of humanity, they need to know the principles of ecology,
    population genetics and even molecular biology.

    That was the message that Harvard University professor E.O. Wilson, a
    two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and one of America's leading
    intellectuals, delivered to a somewhat skeptical audience of the nation's
    historians, gathered recently in one of the mirrored ballrooms of the
    Sheraton hotel in Boston. One cannot know history, Wilson said, without
    knowing how human nature was shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of
    ''deep history.''

    Wilson predicted that, armed with the latest insights from the sciences,
    ''a whole new generation of scholars will surprise us'' with answers to
    puzzles that have long bothered historians. Already researchers are
    finding patterns in the frequency and magnitude of wars and the jittery
    leaps and falls of economies. And biologists are uncovering the
    evolutionary roots of warfare and the types of alliances and betrayals
    that drive politics and palace intrigue.

    This is the stuff of history.

    Indeed, that the American Historical Association, holding its 115th
    annual meeting in town this month, would sponsor a session on
    ''bio-history'' was another sign that scientific insights are playing an
    increasingly influential role in the humanities, scholars said. Even the
    study of English literature, seemingly far from the purview of the
    scientific method, has been shaken up by new statistical techniques that
    can identify the authors of poems and novels written anonymously.

    But as science has made inroads, it has also brought anger - Wilson once
    had a pitcher of ice water dumped on him at a conference - and charges
    that scientists, made arrogant and giddy by the stunning advances of the
    last three decades, have come to believe that, eventually, they will be
    able to explain everything.

    Understanding the biological roots of behavior ''may eventually get you a
    long way with individuals, for biographies,'' said Daniel J. Kevles, a
    historian of science who spoke from his office as a visiting professor at
    Yale University. But ''it will [still] be impossible to understand how
    large groups like nation states behave'' because the calculations
    involved would be hopelessly complicated.

    ''I don't think you need biology to understand the origins of World War
    II,'' Kevles added.

    But bringing biological insight to other fields, in sometimes surprising
    ways, has been Wilson's life work. Inspired by a childhood watching the
    intricate behavior of ants and other creatures, Wilson built a career in
    biology and, in 1975, he changed the field. With the book,
    ''Sociobiology,'' published to both acclaim and ridicule that year, he
    argued that human behavior could be understood by studying our animal
    brethren and explained, in part, by our genetic inheritence.

    With ''bio-history,'' Wilson and his sympathizers say that, far from
    trying to start a new academic war, they are trying to bring together
    disparate disciplines that aren't usually on speaking terms.

    For example, it wasn't long ago that historians were grappling with a
    seemingly simple question: Why did Europeans develop sophisticated
    technology and invade the Americas, instead of the other way around?

    Then, in his 1997 book, ''Guns, Germs, and Steel,'' UCLA School of
    Medicine professor Jared Diamond argued that one of the explanations was
    ecological. Europe was home to far more plants and animals (such as pigs
    and cereals) that were easy to domesticate, making agriculture - and thus
    the kind of civilization that brings rapid technological advance - move
    much faster.

    More controversial among historians, especially liberal historians, has
    been the suggestion that there is a human nature, with instincts and
    predilections honed in the Stone Age, that powerfully shapes the flow of
    history. Wilson cited several examples of cultural patterns, such as the
    way people describe color or the incest taboo, that seem the same across
    the planet.

    These same patterns can affect how people from kings to slaves to
    revolutionaries behave, and how, over time, societies reinvent themselves.

    In a book called ''Ubiquity'' to be published in the United States this
    year, physicist Mark Buchanan argues that many phenomena, from
    earthquakes to financial markets to wars, obey a mathematical law called
    a ''power law'' that precisely describes how likely events of a certain
    magnitude are. This law makes it possible to predict how, over time, a
    system will behave, but not when a particular event - be it a war or an
    earthquake - will happen.

    His work is an outgrowth of what is known as ''chaos theory,'' a
    relatively new branch of mathematics that describes the functioning of
    seemingly random systems where little actions can have big effects. On a
    snow-covered mountain, for example, a slight shift in the wind could do
    nothing, or it could cause an avalanche.

    And, he added, ''revolutions in knowledge'' also seem to follow this
    pattern.

    ''Every once in a while someone says, `We're not going to make progress
    unless we ditch a few of our old ideas,''' Buchanan said. ''And if the
    idea hits just the right spot, it sets off an avalanche of new ideas.''

    Scientists like Wilson think they hear a rumbling from the mountaintops.

    This story ran on page F03 of the Boston Globe on 1/16/2001. © Copyright
    2001 Globe Newspaper Company.

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