Editing E. O. Wilson (section)

===''The Ants'', 1990===
Wilson, along with [[Bert Hölldobler]], carried out a systematic study of ants and ant behavior,<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15wils.html |title=Taking a Cue From Ants on Evolution of Humans |work=The New York Times |author=Nicholas Wade |date=July 15, 2008}}</ref> culminating in the 1990 encyclopedic work ''[[The Ants]]''. Because much self-sacrificing behavior on the part of individual ants can be explained on the basis of their genetic interests in the survival of the sisters, with whom they share 75% of their genes (though the actual case is some species' queens mate with multiple males and therefore some workers in a colony would only be 25% related), Wilson argued for a sociobiological explanation for all social behavior on the model of the behavior of the social insects.

Wilson said in reference to ants that "[[Karl Marx]] was right, [[socialism]] works, it is just that he had the wrong species".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02E6D71F31F931A25756C0A96E958260&sec=&spon= |work=The New York Times |title=Scientist at Work: Edward O. Wilson; From Ants to Ethics: A Biologist Dreams Of Unity of Knowledge |first=Nicholas |last=Wade |date=May 12, 1998 |access-date=May 1, 2010}}</ref> He asserted that individual ants and other [[eusocial]] species were able to reach higher [[Darwinian fitness]] putting the needs of the colony above their own needs as individuals because they lack reproductive independence: individual ants cannot reproduce without a queen, so they can only increase their fitness by working to enhance the fitness of the colony as a whole. Humans, however, do possess reproductive independence, and so individual humans enjoy their maximum level of Darwinian fitness by looking after their own survival and having their own offspring.<ref>{{Cite interview |title=Karl Marx was right, socialism works |last=Wilson |first=Edward O. |location=Harvard University |date=March 27, 1997 |url=http://www.froes.dds.nl/WILSON.htm}}</ref>