Narrator Joe Barrett

This revised edition of Human Nature begins a new phase in the most important
intellectual controversy of this generation: Is human behavior controlled by
the species' biological heritage? Does this heritage limit human destiny?

With characteristic pungency and simplicity of style, the author of
Sociobiology challenges old prejudices and current misconceptions about the
nature-nurture debate. He shows how evolution has left its traces on the most
distinctively human activities, how patterns of generosity, self-sacrifice,
and worship, as well as sexuality and aggression, reveal their deep roots in
the life histories of primate bands that hunted big game in the last Ice Age.
His goal is nothing less than the completion of the Darwinian revolution by
bringing biological thought into the center of the social sciences and the
humanities. Wilson presents a philosophy that cuts across the usual categories
of conservative, liberal, or radical thought. In systematically applying the
modern theory of natural selection to human society, he arrives at conclusions
far removed from the social Darwinist legacy of the last century.

Sociobiological theory, he explains, is compatible with a broadly humane and
egalitarian outlook. Human diversity is to be treasured, not merely tolerated,
he argues. Discrimination against ethnic groups, homosexuals, and women is
based on a complete misunderstanding of biological fact. But biological facts
can never take the place of ethical choices. Once we understand our human
nature, we must choose how "human" in the fullest, biological sense, we wish
to remain. We cannot make this choice with the aid of external guides or
absolute ethical principles, because our very concept of right and wrong is
wholly rooted in our own biological past. This paradox is fundamental to the
evolution of consciousness in any species; there is no formula for escaping it.

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