A review by codalion
The Social Conquest of Earth, by Edward O. Wilson

3.0

I'm a complete layperson on the subjects of evolutionary biology and anthropology so there's only a degree to which I can assess Wilson's central arguments concerning group selection versus kin selection, and that degree is basically zero. I did find the book interesting and informative, though, especially what it had to say about the evolutionary origins of human social behavior in things like color perception (the concepts of 'epigenetic behavior' and 'eusociality' are new to my vocabulary and I'm glad to have learned them). That being said, I'm surprised that people have said the second-to-last part was the crown jewel--I was most interested during the chapter about social insects, actually, and I thought the philosophical conclusions at the end were kind of rushed and not much put together, despite basically agreeing with them. Wilson's writing about biology convinces me more than his history and philosophy, I guess, which shouldn't surprise me. --Not to say that this wasn't interesting and worth it, it was.