So what's the answer to that? We had to develop a new theory which encompassed other things but also encompassed the possibility to answer that key question. Before that, there were no creatures like us either among them or among the bigger animals. We're just newcomers, of course, and the social insects, they're so dominant around the world and the land, didn't show up until well into the Mesozoic, the age of dinosaurs. One is that if those advanced conditions of social organization which we call (unintelligible), we could define it in a moment if you like, but if they are so immensely successful, why are they so rare in the course of evolution, and why did they take so long to appear? We have a couple of questions we need to answer. We have now begun a new line of investigation, and we developed a new theory of the origin of the very advanced social systems like those of ants and bees and wasps on one side, that are the dominant forms ecologically among the little things of the Earth, and ourselves. WILSON: That's a question, a question - you know, it hasn't been addressed much by scientists, and of course probably not at all by social scientists and others. WILSON: Thank you, Ira, I'm glad to be back with you.įLATOW: Your book is called "The Social Conquest of Earth," and in it you call humans and insects the two conquerors of Earth. Wilson, writes about in his new book, "The Social Conquest of Earth." He's professor emeritus at Harvard University in Cambridge.
Can you believe that?īut how did ants and humans, such different creatures, both evolve complex societies? And is that the key to our success? Are our instincts - are your culture and your instincts part of your genes? Just a couple of the questions my next guest, Edward O. And he says if you put them all on a scale, they'd weigh about as much as all of the world's humans. My next guest, who may be the world's greatest ant expert, estimates the number of ants living on Earth today to be 10 to the 16th power. But before we get too cocky, let's not forget about those other titans of the Earth, the bugs. We can harvest anything we want from the land or the sea. After all, we can clear-cut forests, we can chop the tops off mountains. It's easy to assume that we humans rule the Earth.
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