Neenah Public Library

Letters to a young scientist, Edward O. Wilson

eng

contains biographical information

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

Letters to a young scientist

812254231

Edward O. Wilson

The author, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist imparts the wisdom of his storied career to the next generation. Inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, the author 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, he 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, he 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, he 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

You made the right choice -- The Path to Follow. First passion, then training ; Mathematics ; The path to follow. -- The Creative Process. What is science? ; The creative process ; What it takes ; Most likely to succeed ; I never changed ; Archetypes of the scientific mind ; Scientists as explorers of the universe. -- A Life in Science. A mentor and the start of a career ; The grails of field biology ; A celebration of audacity ; Know your subject, thoroughly. -- Theory and the Big Picture. Science as universal knowledge ; Searching for new worlds on Earth ; The making of theories ; Biological theory on a grand scale ; Theory in the real world. -- Truth and Ethics. The scientific ethic