Ethics In Science Lecture Series | Public Ethics, Politics and Sociobiology

E.O. Wilson set off an academic controversy regarding the nature of natural science and its appropriate role in the American political context. This talk examines the altercations between Wilson and Stephen Jay Gould through their publications and correspondence. Wilson held a classically liberal vision of science as the necessary foundation for a democratic society. Gould was concerned about the history of scientific racism and sexism in the United States. These divergent views of science and public ethics translated into a bitter disagreement between these evolutionary scientists at the height of the sociobiology controversy.

For more information, please visit the Ethics in Science website at http://www.uh.edu/ethicsinscience/Seminars/Myrna-Sheldon.php.