ABOUT THE SPEAKER
E.O. Wilson - Biologist
Biologist E.O. Wilson explores the world of ants and other tiny creatures, and writes movingly about the way all creatures great and small are interdependent.

Why you should listen

One of the world's most distinguished scientists, E.O. Wilson is a professor and honorary curator in entomology at Harvard. In 1975, he published Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, a work that described social behavior, from ants to humans.

Drawing from his deep knowledge of the Earth's "little creatures" and his sense that their contribution to the planet's ecology is underappreciated, he produced what may be his most important book, The Diversity of Life. In it he describes how an intricately interconnected natural system is threatened by man's encroachment, in a crisis he calls the "sixth extinction" (the fifth one wiped out the dinosaurs).

With his most recent book, The Creation, he wants to put the differences of science- and faith-based explanations aside "to protect Earth's vanishing natural habitats and species ...; in other words, the Creation, however we believe it came into existence." A recent documentary called Behold the Earth illustrates this human relationship to nature, or rather separation from an originally intended human bond with nature, through music, imagery, and thoughtful words from both Christians and scientists, including Wilson. 

More profile about the speaker
E.O. Wilson | Speaker | TED.com
TED2007

E.O. Wilson: My wish: Build the Encyclopedia of Life

Filmed:
1,596,443 views

As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of all creatures that we learn more about our biosphere -- and build a networked encyclopedia of all the world's knowledge about life.
- Biologist
Biologist E.O. Wilson explores the world of ants and other tiny creatures, and writes movingly about the way all creatures great and small are interdependent. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:26
I have all my life wondered what "mind-boggling" meant.
0
1000
5000
00:31
After two days here, I declare myself boggled, and enormously impressed,
1
6000
10000
00:41
and feel that you are one of the great hopes --
2
16000
6000
00:47
not just for American achievement in science and technology,
3
22000
6000
00:54
but for the whole world.
4
29000
2000
00:56
I've come, however, on a special mission on behalf of my constituency,
5
31000
8000
01:04
which are the 10-to-the-18th-power -- that's a million trillion --
6
39000
9000
01:13
insects and other small creatures, and to make a plea for them.
7
48000
14000
01:27
If we were to wipe out insects alone, just that group alone, on this planet --
8
62000
6000
01:33
which we are trying hard to do --
9
68000
4000
01:37
the rest of life and humanity with it would mostly disappear from the land.
10
72000
9000
01:46
And within a few months.
11
81000
2000
01:48
Now, how did I come to this particular position of advocacy?
12
83000
6000
01:54
As a little boy, and through my teenage years,
13
89000
6000
02:00
I became increasingly fascinated by the diversity of life.
14
95000
3000
02:03
I had a butterfly period, a snake period, a bird period, a fish period, a cave period
15
98000
12000
02:15
and finally and definitively, an ant period.
16
110000
4000
02:19
By my college years, I was a devoted myrmecologist,
17
114000
5000
02:24
a specialist on the biology of ants,
18
119000
2000
02:26
but my attention and research continued to make journeys
19
121000
5000
02:31
across the great variety of life on Earth in general --
20
126000
4000
02:35
including all that it means to us as a species, how little we understand it
21
130000
8000
02:43
and how pressing a danger that our activities have created for it.
22
138000
7000
02:50
Out of that broader study has emerged a concern and an ambition,
23
145000
5000
02:55
crystallized in the wish that I'm about to make to you.
24
150000
5000
03:00
My choice is the culmination of a lifetime commitment
25
155000
5000
03:05
that began with growing up on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, on the Florida peninsula.
26
160000
7000
03:12
As far back as I can remember, I was enchanted by the natural beauty of that region
27
167000
9000
03:21
and the almost tropical exuberance of the plants and animals that grow there.
28
176000
6000
03:27
One day when I was only seven years old and fishing,
29
182000
4000
03:31
I pulled a "pinfish," they're called, with sharp dorsal spines, up too hard and fast,
30
186000
8000
03:39
and I blinded myself in one eye.
31
194000
2000
03:41
I later discovered I was also hard of hearing,
32
196000
3000
03:44
possibly congenitally, in the upper registers.
33
199000
3000
03:47
So in planning to be a professional naturalist --
34
202000
5000
03:52
I never considered anything else in my entire life --
35
207000
3000
03:55
I found that I was lousy at bird watching and couldn't track frog calls either.
36
210000
7000
04:03
So I turned to the teeming small creatures
37
218000
4000
04:07
that can be held between the thumb and forefinger:
38
222000
5000
04:12
the little things that compose the foundation of our ecosystems,
39
227000
7000
04:19
the little things, as I like to say, who run the world.
40
234000
5000
04:24
In so doing, I reached a frontier of biology so strange, so rich,
41
239000
8000
04:32
that it seemed as though it exists on another planet.
42
247000
6000
04:38
In fact, we live on a mostly unexplored planet.
43
253000
4000
04:42
The great majority of organisms on Earth remain unknown to science.
44
257000
5000
04:47
In the last 30 years, thanks to explorations in remote parts of the world
45
262000
6000
04:53
and advances in technology,
46
268000
2000
04:55
biologists have, for example, added a full one-third of the known frog and other amphibian species,
47
270000
10000
05:05
to bring the current total to 5,400,
48
280000
4000
05:09
and more continue to pour in.
49
284000
2000
05:11
Two new kinds of whales have been discovered, along with two new antelopes,
50
286000
6000
05:17
dozens of monkey species and a new kind of elephant --
51
292000
4000
05:21
and even a distinct kind of gorilla.
52
296000
3000
05:24
At the extreme opposite end of the size scale, the class of marine bacteria,
53
299000
10000
05:34
the Prochlorococci -- that will be on the final exam --
54
309000
6000
05:40
although discovered only in 1988, are now recognized as likely the most abundant organisms on Earth,
55
315000
9000
05:49
and moreover, responsible for a large part of the photosynthesis that occurs in the ocean.
56
324000
7000
05:56
These bacteria were not uncovered sooner
57
331000
4000
06:00
because they are also among the smallest of all Earth's organisms --
58
335000
5000
06:05
so minute that they cannot be seen with conventional optical microscopy.
59
340000
6000
06:11
Yet life in the sea may depend on these tiny creatures.
60
346000
4000
06:15
These examples are just the first glimpse of our ignorance of life on this planet.
61
350000
5000
06:20
Consider the fungi -- including mushrooms, rusts, molds and many disease-causing organisms.
62
355000
7000
06:27
60,000 species are known to science,
63
362000
4000
06:31
but more than 1.5 million have been estimated to exist.
64
366000
4000
06:35
Consider the nematode roundworm, the most abundant of all animals.
65
370000
6000
06:41
Four out of five animals on Earth are nematode worms --
66
376000
8000
06:49
if all solid materials except nematode worms were to be eliminated,
67
384000
4000
06:53
you could still see the ghostly outline of most of it in nematode worms.
68
388000
7000
07:00
About 16,000 species of nematode worms
69
395000
5000
07:05
have been discovered and diagnosed by scientists;
70
400000
3000
07:08
there could be hundreds of thousands of them, even millions, still unknown.
71
403000
5000
07:13
This vast domain of hidden biodiversity is increased still further
72
408000
5000
07:18
by the dark matter of the biological world of bacteria,
73
413000
6000
07:24
which within just the last several years
74
419000
6000
07:30
still were known from only about 6,000 species of bacteria worldwide.
75
425000
7000
07:37
But that number of bacteria species can be found in one gram of soil,
76
432000
6000
07:43
just a little handful of soil, in the 10 billion bacteria that would be there.
77
438000
9000
07:52
It's been estimated that a single ton of soil -- fertile soil --
78
447000
5000
07:57
contains approximately four million species of bacteria, all unknown.
79
452000
8000
08:05
So the question is: what are they all doing?
80
460000
8000
08:13
The fact is, we don't know.
81
468000
3000
08:16
We are living on a planet with a lot of activities, with reference to our living environment,
82
471000
9000
08:25
done by faith and guess alone.
83
480000
4000
08:29
Our lives depend upon these creatures.
84
484000
4000
08:33
To take an example close to home: there are over 500 species of bacteria now known --
85
488000
8000
08:41
friendly bacteria -- living symbiotically in your mouth and throat
86
496000
5000
08:46
probably necessary to your health for holding off pathogenic bacteria.
87
501000
7000
08:53
At this point I think we have a little impressionistic film
88
508000
4000
08:57
that was made especially for this occasion.
89
512000
2000
08:59
And I'd like to show it.
90
514000
2000
09:02
Assisted in this by Billie Holiday.
91
517000
3000
09:05
(Video)
92
520000
122000
11:07
And that may be just the beginning!
93
642000
3000
11:10
The viruses, those quasi-organisms among which are the prophages,
94
645000
6000
11:16
the gene weavers that promote the continued evolution in the lives of the bacteria,
95
651000
7000
11:23
are a virtually unknown frontier of modern biology, a world unto themselves.
96
658000
9000
11:32
What constitutes a viral species is still unresolved,
97
667000
4000
11:36
although they're obviously of enormous importance to us.
98
671000
4000
11:40
But this much we can say: the variety of genes on the planet in viruses
99
675000
6000
11:46
exceeds, or is likely to exceed, that in all of the rest of life combined.
100
681000
7000
11:54
Nowadays, in addressing microbial biodiversity,
101
689000
3000
11:58
scientists are like explorers in a rowboat launched onto the Pacific Ocean.
102
693000
6000
12:04
But that is changing rapidly with the aid of new genomic technology.
103
699000
5000
12:09
Already it is possible to sequence the entire genetic code of a bacterium in under four hours.
104
704000
7000
12:16
Soon we will be in a position to go forth in the field with sequencers on our backs --
105
711000
6000
12:22
to hunt bacteria in tiny crevices of the habitat's surface
106
717000
6000
12:28
in the way you go watching for birds with binoculars.
107
723000
4000
12:32
What will we find as we map the living world, as, finally, we get this underway seriously?
108
727000
8000
12:40
As we move past the relatively gigantic mammals, birds, frogs and plants
109
735000
5000
12:45
to the more elusive insects and other small invertebrates and then beyond
110
740000
6000
12:51
to the countless millions of organisms in the invisible living world
111
746000
5000
12:56
enveloped and living within humanity?
112
751000
4000
13:00
Already what were thought to be bacteria for generations
113
755000
6000
13:06
have been found to compose, instead, two great domains of microorganisms:
114
761000
6000
13:12
true bacteria and one-celled organisms the archaea,
115
767000
4000
13:16
which are closer than other bacteria to the eukaryota, the group that we belong to.
116
771000
7000
13:23
Some serious biologists, and I count myself among them,
117
778000
5000
13:28
have begun to wonder that among the enormous and still unknown diversity of microorganisms,
118
783000
9000
13:37
one might -- just might -- find aliens among them.
119
792000
5000
13:42
True aliens, stocks that arrived from outer space.
120
797000
5000
13:47
They've had billions of years to do it,
121
802000
2000
13:49
but especially during the earliest period of biological evolution on this planet.
122
804000
7000
13:56
We do know that some bacterial species that have earthly origin
123
811000
4000
14:00
are capable of almost unimaginable extremes of temperature
124
815000
8000
14:08
and other harsh changes in environment,
125
823000
2000
14:11
including hard radiation strong enough and maintained long enough to crack the Pyrex vessels
126
826000
8000
14:19
around the growing population of bacteria.
127
834000
3000
14:22
There may be a temptation to treat the biosphere holistically
128
837000
6000
14:28
and the species that compose it as a great flux of entities
129
843000
6000
14:34
hardly worth distinguishing one from the other.
130
849000
4000
14:38
But each of these species, even the tiniest Prochlorococci,
131
853000
5000
14:43
are masterpieces of evolution.
132
858000
2000
14:45
Each has persisted for thousands to millions of years.
133
860000
6000
14:51
Each is exquisitely adapted to the environment in which it lives,
134
866000
4000
14:55
interlocked with other species to form ecosystems upon which our own lives depend
135
870000
7000
15:02
in ways we have not begun even to imagine.
136
877000
4000
15:06
We will destroy these ecosystems and the species composing them
137
881000
4000
15:10
at the peril of our own existence --
138
885000
3000
15:13
and unfortunately we are destroying them with ingenuity and ceaseless energy.
139
888000
9000
15:22
My own epiphany as a conservationist came in 1953, while a Harvard graduate student,
140
897000
10000
15:32
searching for rare ants found in the mountain forests of Cuba,
141
907000
3000
15:36
ants that shine in the sunlight --
142
911000
2000
15:38
metallic green or metallic blue, according to species, and one species, I discovered, metallic gold.
143
913000
8000
15:46
I found my magical ants, but only after a tough climb into the mountains
144
921000
5000
15:51
where the last of the native Cuban forests hung on,
145
926000
4000
15:55
and were then -- and still are -- being cut back.
146
930000
6000
16:01
I realized then that these species
147
936000
3000
16:04
and a large part of the other unique, marvelous animals and plants on that island --
148
939000
6000
16:10
and this is true of practically every part of the world --
149
945000
5000
16:15
which took millions of years to evolve, are in the process of disappearing forever.
150
950000
5000
16:20
And so it is everywhere one looks.
151
955000
5000
16:25
The human juggernaut is permanently eroding Earth's ancient biosphere by a combination of forces
152
960000
8000
16:33
that can be summarized by the acronym "HIPPO," the animal hippo.
153
968000
5000
16:38
H is for habitat destruction, including climate change forced by greenhouse gases.
154
973000
7000
16:45
I is for the invasive species like the fire ants, the zebra mussels, broom grasses
155
980000
8000
16:53
and pathogenic bacteria and viruses that are flooding every country, and at an exponential rate -- that's the I.
156
988000
11000
17:04
The P, the first one in "HIPPO," is for pollution.
157
999000
4000
17:08
The second is for continued population, human population expansion.
158
1003000
6000
17:14
And the final letter is O, for over-harvesting --
159
1009000
3000
17:17
driving species into extinction by excessive hunting and fishing.
160
1012000
4000
17:21
The HIPPO juggernaut we have created, if unabated, is destined --
161
1016000
6000
17:27
according to the best estimates of ongoing biodiversity research --
162
1022000
4000
17:31
to reduce half of Earth's still surviving animal and plant species
163
1026000
5000
17:36
to extinction or critical endangerment by the end of the century.
164
1031000
5000
17:41
Human-forced climate change alone -- again, if unabated --
165
1036000
5000
17:46
could eliminate a quarter of surviving species during the next five decades.
166
1041000
6000
17:52
What will we and all future generations lose
167
1047000
4000
17:56
if much of the living environment is thus degraded?
168
1051000
4000
18:02
Huge potential sources of scientific information yet to be gathered,
169
1057000
4000
18:06
much of our environmental stability
170
1061000
4000
18:10
and new kinds of pharmaceuticals and new products of unimaginable strength and value --
171
1065000
7000
18:17
all thrown away.
172
1072000
3000
18:20
The loss will inflict a heavy price
173
1075000
3000
18:23
in wealth, security and yes, spirituality for all time to come,
174
1078000
7000
18:30
because previous cataclysms of this kind --
175
1085000
2000
18:32
the last one, that ended the age of dinosaurs --
176
1087000
2000
18:35
took, normally, five to 10 million years to repair.
177
1090000
6000
18:41
Sadly, our knowledge of biodiversity is so incomplete
178
1096000
4000
18:45
that we are at risk of losing a great deal of it before it is even discovered.
179
1100000
5000
18:50
For example, even in the United States, the 200,000 species known currently
180
1105000
9000
18:59
actually has been found to be only partial in coverage;
181
1114000
7000
19:06
it is mostly unknown to us in basic biology.
182
1121000
5000
19:11
Only about 15 percent of the known species have been studied well enough to evaluate their status.
183
1126000
7000
19:18
Of the 15 percent evaluated, 20 percent are classified as "in peril,"
184
1133000
6000
19:24
that is, in danger of extinction.
185
1139000
2000
19:26
That's in the United States.
186
1141000
2000
19:28
We are, in short, flying blind into our environmental future.
187
1143000
7000
19:35
We urgently need to change this.
188
1150000
2000
19:37
We need to have the biosphere properly explored
189
1152000
4000
19:41
so that we can understand and competently manage it.
190
1156000
4000
19:45
We need to settle down before we wreck the planet.
191
1160000
4000
19:49
And we need that knowledge.
192
1164000
1000
19:50
This should be a big science project equivalent to the Human Genome Project.
193
1165000
5000
19:55
It should be thought of as a biological moonshot with a timetable.
194
1170000
5000
20:00
So this brings me to my wish for TEDsters,
195
1175000
4000
20:04
and to anyone else around the world who hears this talk.
196
1179000
3000
20:07
I wish we will work together to help create the key tools
197
1182000
6000
20:13
that we need to inspire preservation of Earth's biodiversity.
198
1188000
4000
20:17
And let us call it the "Encyclopedia of Life."
199
1192000
4000
20:21
What is the "Encyclopedia of Life?" A concept that has already taken hold
200
1196000
4000
20:25
and is beginning to spread and be looked at seriously?
201
1200000
4000
20:29
It is an encyclopedia that lives on the Internet
202
1204000
3000
20:32
and is contributed to by thousands of scientists around the world.
203
1207000
5000
20:37
Amateurs can do it also.
204
1212000
3000
20:40
It has an indefinitely expandable page for each species.
205
1215000
5000
20:45
It makes all key information about life on Earth accessible to anyone,
206
1220000
6000
20:51
on demand, anywhere in the world.
207
1226000
2000
20:53
I've written about this idea before,
208
1228000
4000
20:57
and I know there are people in this room who have expended significant effort on it in the past.
209
1232000
7000
21:04
But what excites me is that since I first put forward this particular idea in that form,
210
1239000
8000
21:12
science has advanced.
211
1247000
2000
21:14
Technology has moved forward.
212
1249000
3000
21:17
Today, the practicalities of making such an encyclopedia,
213
1252000
4000
21:21
regardless of the magnitude of the information put into it, are within reach.
214
1256000
6000
21:27
Indeed, in the past year, a group of influential scientific institutions
215
1262000
4000
21:31
have begun mobilizing to realize this dream.
216
1266000
4000
21:35
I wish you would help them.
217
1270000
3000
21:38
Working together, we can make this real.
218
1273000
3000
21:42
The encyclopedia will quickly pay for itself in practical applications.
219
1277000
5000
21:47
It will address transcendent qualities in the human consciousness, and sense of human need.
220
1282000
6000
21:53
It will transform the science of biology in ways of obvious benefit to humanity.
221
1288000
6000
21:59
And most of all, it can inspire a new generation of biologists
222
1294000
5000
22:04
to continue the quest that started, for me personally, 60 years ago:
223
1299000
5000
22:09
to search for life, to understand it and finally, above all, to preserve it.
224
1304000
5000
22:14
That is my wish. Thank you.
225
1309000
2000

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
E.O. Wilson - Biologist
Biologist E.O. Wilson explores the world of ants and other tiny creatures, and writes movingly about the way all creatures great and small are interdependent.

Why you should listen

One of the world's most distinguished scientists, E.O. Wilson is a professor and honorary curator in entomology at Harvard. In 1975, he published Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, a work that described social behavior, from ants to humans.

Drawing from his deep knowledge of the Earth's "little creatures" and his sense that their contribution to the planet's ecology is underappreciated, he produced what may be his most important book, The Diversity of Life. In it he describes how an intricately interconnected natural system is threatened by man's encroachment, in a crisis he calls the "sixth extinction" (the fifth one wiped out the dinosaurs).

With his most recent book, The Creation, he wants to put the differences of science- and faith-based explanations aside "to protect Earth's vanishing natural habitats and species ...; in other words, the Creation, however we believe it came into existence." A recent documentary called Behold the Earth illustrates this human relationship to nature, or rather separation from an originally intended human bond with nature, through music, imagery, and thoughtful words from both Christians and scientists, including Wilson. 

More profile about the speaker
E.O. Wilson | Speaker | TED.com