The 100 Most Influential Scientists of All Time (41 page)

One of Wilson's most notable theories was that even a characteristic such as altruism may have evolved through natural selection. Traditionally, natural selection was thought to foster only those physical and behavioral traits that increase an individual's chances of reproducing. Thus, altruistic behaviour—as when an organism sacrifices itself in order to save other members of its immediate family—would seem incompatible with this process. In
Sociobiology
Wilson argued that the sacrifice involved in much altruistic behaviour results in saving closely related individuals—i.e., individuals who share many of the sacrificed organism's genes. Therefore, the preservation of the gene, rather than the preservation of the individual, was viewed as the focus of evolutionary strategy.

In later years, however, Wilson was inclined to think that highly social organisms are integrated to such an extent that they are better treated as one overall unit—a superorganism—rather than as individuals in their own right. This view was suggested by Charles Darwin himself in
On the Origin of Species
(1859). Wilson expounded on it in
Success, Dominance, and the Superorganism: The Case of the Social Insects
(1997).

In
On Human Nature
(1978), for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1979, Wilson discussed the application of sociobiology to human aggression, sexuality, and ethics. His book
The Ants
(1990) was a monumental summary of contemporary knowledge of those insects. In
The Diversity of Life
(1992), Wilson sought to explain how the world's living species became diverse and examined the massive species extinctions caused by human activities in the 20th century.

In his later career Wilson turned increasingly to religious and philosophical topics. In
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge
(1998), he strove to demonstrate the interrelatedness and evolutionary origins of all human thought. In
Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth
(2006), he developed further the evolutionarily informed humanism he had earlier explored in
On Human Nature
. In contrast to many other biologists, notably Stephen Jay Gould, Wilson believed that evolution is essentially progressive, leading from the simple to the complex and from the worse-adapted to the better. From this he inferred an ultimate moral imperative for humans: to cherish and promote the well-being of their species.

In 1990 Wilson and American biologist Paul Ehrlich shared the Crafoord Prize, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to support areas of science not covered by the Nobel Prizes. His autobiography,
Naturalist
, appeared in 1994.

(b. April 3, 1934, London, Eng.)

B
ritish ethologist Jane Goodall is known for her exceptionally detailed and long-term research on the chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania.
Interested in animal behaviour from an early age, Goodall left school at age 18. She worked as a secretary and as a film production assistant until she gained passage to Africa. Once there, Goodall began assisting paleontologist and anthropologist Louis Leakey.

Her association with Leakey led eventually to her establishment in June 1960 of a camp in the Gombe Stream Game Reserve (now a national park) so that she could observe the behaviour of chimpanzees in the region. In 1964 she married a Dutch photographer who had been sent in 1962 to Tanzania to film her work (later they divorced). The University of Cambridge in 1965 awarded Goodall a Ph.D. in ethology; she was one of very few candidates to receive a Ph.D. without having first possessed an A.B. degree. Except for short periods of absence, Goodall and her family remained in Gombe until 1975, often directing the fieldwork of other doctoral candidates. In 1977 she cofounded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education, and Conservation in California; the centre later moved its headquarters to Washington, D.C.

Over the years Goodall was able to correct a number of misunderstandings about chimpanzees. She found, for example, that the animals are omnivorous, not vegetarian; that they are capable of making and using tools; and, in short, that they have a set of hitherto unrecognized complex and highly developed social behaviours. Her work served as a classic example of aggressive behavior in chimpanzees; she observed one of the animals intimidating rivals by banging two oilcans together. Goodall wrote a number of books and articles about various aspects of her work, notably
In the Shadow of Man
(1971). She summarized her years of observation in
The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior
(1986). Goodall continued to write and lecture about environmental and conservation issues into
the early 21st century. The recipient of numerous honours, she was created Dame of the British Empire in 2003.

(b. Oct. 7, 1939, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, Eng.)

E
nglish chemist Sir Harold Walter Kroto, with Richard E. Smalley and Robert F. Curl, Jr., was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their joint discovery of the carbon compounds called fullerenes.

Kroto received a Ph.D. from the University of Sheffield in 1964. He joined the faculty of the University of Sussex in 1967 and became a professor of chemistry there in 1985. In the course of his research, Kroto used microwave spectroscopy to discover long, chainlike carbon molecules in the atmospheres of stars and gas clouds. Wishing to study the vaporization of carbon in order to find out how these carbon chains formed, he went to Rice University (Houston, Texas), where Smalley had designed an instrument, the laser-supersonic cluster beam apparatus, that could vaporize almost any known material and then be used to study the resulting clusters of atoms or molecules.

In a series of experiments carried out in September 1985, the two men, along with Smalley's associate at Rice, Robert Curl, generated clusters of carbon atoms by vaporizing graphite in an atmosphere of helium. Some of the spectra they obtained from the vaporization corresponded to previously unknown forms of carbon containing even numbers of carbon atoms ranging from 40 to more than 100 atoms. Most of the new carbon molecules had a structure of C
⁶⁰
. The researchers recognized that this molecule's atoms are bonded together into a highly symmetrical, hollow structure that resembles a sphere or ball. C
⁶⁰
is a polygon with 60 vertices and 32 faces, 12 of which are
pentagons and 20 of which are hexagons—the same geometry as that of a soccer ball.

In the 1985 paper describing their work, the discoverers chose the whimsical name buckminsterfullerene for C
⁶⁰
, after the American architect R. Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic dome designs have a structure similar to that atom. The discovery of the unique structure of fullerenes, or buckyballs, as this class of carbon compounds came to be known, opened up an entirely new branch of chemistry.

(b. June 6, 1943, Akron, Ohio, U.S.—d. Oct. 28, 2005, Houston, Texas)

A
merican chemist and physicist Richard Errett Smalley shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Robert F. Curl, Jr., and Sir Harold W. Kroto for their joint discovery of carbon
⁶⁰
(C
⁶⁰
, or buckminsterfullerene, or buckyball) and the fullerenes.

Smalley received a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1973. After postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago, he began his teaching career at Rice University (Houston, Texas) in 1976. He was named Gene and Norman Hackerman professor of chemistry there in 1982 and became a professor of physics in 1990.

It was at Rice University that Smalley and his colleagues discovered fullerenes, the third known form of pure carbon (diamond and graphite are the other two known forms). Smalley had designed a laser–supersonic cluster beam apparatus that could vaporize any material into a plasma of atoms and then be used to study the resulting clusters (aggregates of tens to many tens of atoms). On a visit to Smalley's lab, Kroto realized that the technique might be used to simulate the chemical conditions in the atmosphere of carbon stars and so provide compelling evidence for his conjecture that the chains originated in stars.

In a now-famous 11-day series of experiments conducted in September 1985 at Rice University by Kroto, Smalley, and Curl and their student coworkers James Heath, Yuan Liu, and Sean O'Brien, Smalley's apparatus was used to simulate the chemistry in the atmosphere of giant stars by turning the vaporization laser onto graphite. The study not only confirmed that carbon chains were produced but also showed, serendipitously, that a hitherto unknown carbon species containing 60 atoms formed spontaneously in relatively high abundance. The atoms of fullerenes are arranged in a closed shell. Carbon
⁶⁰
, the smallest stable fullerene molecule, consists of 60 carbon atoms that fit together to form a cage, with the bonds resembling the pattern of seams on a soccer ball. The molecule was given the name buckminsterfullerene because its shape is similar to the geodesic domes designed by the American architect and theorist R. Buckminster Fuller. A leading supporter of nanotechnology, Smalley played a key role in the establishment in 2000 of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, a federal research and development program.

(b. Aug. 23, 1933, Alice, Texas, U.S.)

A
merican chemist Robert Floyd Curl, Jr., with Richard E. Smalley and Sir Harold W. Kroto discovered the first fullerene, a spherical cluster of carbon atoms, in 1985. The discovery opened a new branch of chemistry, and all three men were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work.

Curl studied at Rice University (B.A., 1954) in Houston, Texas, and then completed his doctoral studies in chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley in 1957. He joined the faculty at Rice in 1958. In September 1985 Curl met with Kroto of the University of Sussex, Eng., and
Smalley, a colleague at Rice, and, in 11 days of research, they discovered fullerenes. They announced their findings to the public in the Nov. 14, 1985, issue of the journal
Nature
.

Although Kroto, Curl, and Smalley discovered this fundamental new form of carbon as a synthetic product in the course of attempting to simulate the chemistry in the atmosphere of giant stars, fullerenes were later found to occur naturally in tiny amounts on Earth and in meteorites. In addition, since the discovery of fullerenes, research on these compounds has accelerated. In the 1990s a method was announced for producing buckyballs in large quantities and practical applications appeared likely. In 1991
Science
magazine named buckminsterfullerene their “molecule of the year.”

Curl's later research focused on quartz tuning forks and the development of trace gas sensors. This research was aimed at creating sensors that could be used to generate arrays of quartz tuning forks. These arrays could then be used for the photoacoustic detection of gases. He also was developing improved technology to sequence DNA that employed high-powered lasers and fluorescent dyes.

(b. Sept. 10, 1941, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. May 20, 2002, New York)

S
tephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and science writer. Gould graduated from Antioch College in 1963 and received a Ph.D. in paleontology at Columbia University in 1967. He joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1967, becoming a full professor there in 1973.

Gould's technical research focused on the evolution and speciation of West Indian land snails. With Niles Eldredge, he developed in 1972 the theory of punctuated equilibrium, a revision of Darwinian theory proposing that
the creation of new species through evolutionary change occurs not at slow, constant rates over millions of years but rather in rapid bursts over periods as short as thousands of years, which are then followed by long periods of stability during which organisms undergo little further change. Gould's theory was opposed by many, including American biologist Edward O. Wilson, who believed that evolution is essentially progressive, leading from the simple to the complex and from the worse-adapted to the better.

Gould also argued that population genetics is useful—indeed, all-important—for understanding relatively small-scale or short-term evolutionary changes but that it is incapable of yielding insight into large-scale or long-term ones, such as the Cambrian explosion. One must turn to paleontology in its own right to explain these changes, which might well involve extinctions brought about by extraterrestrial forces (e.g., comets) or new kinds of selection operating only at levels higher than the individual organism. Similar to Gould's theory on evolutionary change, much of his later work often drew criticism from other scientists.

Apart from his technical research, Gould became widely known as a writer, polemicist, and popularizer of evolutionary theory. In his books
Ontogeny and Phylogeny
(1977),
The Mismeasure of Man
(1981),
Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle
(1987), and
Wonderful Life
(1989), he traced the course and significance of various controversies in the history of evolutionary biology, intelligence testing, geology, and paleontology. From 1974 Gould regularly contributed essays to the periodical
Natural History
, and these were collected in several volumes, including
Ever Since Darwin
(1977),
The Panda's Thumb
(1980), and
Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes
(1983). In
Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life
(1999), Gould, who was then president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
rejected the work of individuals who tried to integrate science and religion. According to Gould, science and religion were never at war but should remain separate. Gould's science writing is characterized by a graceful literary style and the ability to treat complex concepts with absolute clarity.