Letters to a Young Scientist

Content Warning: This section discusses scientific racism and eugenics.

Edward Wilson is the author of Letters to a Young Scientist. In the book, he describes his childhood in rural Alabama, where his education was uneven because of the World War II and the poor educational standards at the time. He quickly rose to the top of his field in university because he chose to study ants, which were unpopular and little understood.

As a researcher, Wilson developed many influential experiments. He explored the extent to which ants communicate through pheromones, and cataloged many species of ants. He traveled the world extensively to find new ant species, sometimes succeeding and sometimes meeting with frustrating failures. At Harvard, Wilson mentored and was mentored by other scientists, helping him connect with the scientific community. He wrote this book less than a decade before his death, several years after he retired from Harvard. His stated goal is to help inspire young scientists and to give them invaluable advice to help them get started in their careers.

Wilson is emphatic about the importance of truth and academic rigor in science. He advises his readers to focus only on what can be reliably proven by their data.