To name a book in the XNUMXst century the way Wilson did, one must be either very ignorant or very confident in one’s knowledge. The first certainly does not apply to the author — a well-known biologist, popularizer of science and a consistent Darwinist. The second seems to apply in full, although Edward Wilson believes not so much in himself as in the power of scientific knowledge as such. Therefore, he solves many key issues, without which it is impossible to understand the meaning of life, exclusively from Darwinian positions. Justifying, for example, the evolutionary necessity of religion, or making the following comments: «It is quite appropriate to say that the whole history of philosophy in the bottom line consists mainly of erroneous models of the human brain.» The book is very useful for those who are interested in how modern science looks at the problems of the meaning of life. But it hardly brings us closer to understanding this very meaning. However, it would be naive to expect this from absolutely any book.
Alpina non-fiction, 224 p., 2015.