Sociobiologist Channels Howard Hawks—Science Becomes Story
E.O. Wilson
Howard Hawks
The great E.O. Wilson (whose book, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge helped inspire ARTStem) was on Charlie Rose recently to tout his new book, his debut work of fiction, Anthill. He had some interesting things to say about why, late in his career, he turned to fiction:
“I finally realized people respect nonfiction, but they read novels. If you have a story to tell, as I think, well, one famous Hollywood producer put it–Howard Hawks— ‘Find a good story and tell it!” Well, we have a lot of good stories to tell in science about the natural world. We have a lot of messages about the living world. We’ve been putting it across for a long time in nonfiction works and we’re not making the type of progress that we’d like to make.” —E.O. Wilson
Once again, it all comes back to story. It’s that common ground, a solvent in which everything we study and teach about—artists, humanists, scientists alike—dissolves into one shared project.
Check out the whole interview:
