愛德華·威爾遜 （Edward O. Wilson）

美國演化生物學巨擘，“社會生物學”理論之父，生物多樣性保護的倡導者。

1947年他進入亞拉巴馬大學生物學係，開啓蟻類研究之旅，後轉入哈佛大學，年僅32歲便獲終身教職。

他以傑齣科學成就帶來20世紀生物學的數次革命，從社會生物學的角度齣發，主張動物的思考與活動深受其生物條件製約，人類的社會學行為也可用進化論來分析，從而引發20世紀科學界的震動。

他也努力推進地球生物多樣性保護工程，呼籲政府和媒體嚮物種分類投入更多關注，在他的倡議下，收納全球物種資料的在綫百科全書得以建立。

退休以後，他緻力於科學人文寫作，將畢生的研究成果和科學事業心得匯入其作品和演講中，鼓勵一代年輕科學傢投身生物學領域。《自然》雜誌評論他“既是世界級的科學傢，也是偉大的寫作者。”

譯者

王惟芬

颱灣大學動物學博士，倫敦帝國理工學院科技醫療史碩士，曾任職於颱灣中央研究院動物研究所與生物多樣性中心、颱灣大學海洋研究所，譯有《挑戰海洋盡頭》《普魯斯特與烏賊》《左手、右手：探討不對的起源》《蝴蝶、斑馬與胚胎》《抗生素的迷思》《神與史蒂芬霍金：究竟是誰的設計》等十餘種書籍。另外他還參與環境資訊電子報、颱灣生物多樣性資訊網與世界百大入侵物種資料庫的編譯工作。

Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson imparts the wisdom of his storied career to the next generation.

Inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, Edward O. Wilson has distilled sixty years of teaching into a book for students, young and old. Reflecting on his coming-of-age in the South as a Boy Scout and a lover of ants and butterflies, Wilson threads these twenty-one letters, each richly illustrated, with autobiographical anecdotes that illuminate his career—both his successes and his failures—and his motivations for becoming a biologist. At a time in human history when our survival is more than ever linked to our understanding of science, Wilson insists that success in the sciences does not depend on mathematical skill, but rather a passion for finding a problem and solving it. From the collapse of stars to the exploration of rain forests and the oceans’ depths, Wilson instills a love of the innate creativity of science and a respect for the human being’s modest place in the planet’s ecosystem in his readers.