Letters to a Young Scientist

Content Warning: This section discusses scientific racism. 

Wilson argues that the only way to understand the universe is through science. All other forms of knowledge, including the social sciences and the humanities, are gradually ceding ground to science. He criticizes academics in the humanities for “fiercely [defending] their isolation” (178) from other subjects and for having a limited understanding of thought and intelligence. Wilson believes that this limited understanding is the reason that people have a hard time imagining “the possible nature and content of extraterrestrial intelligence” (178). He goes on to explain that science fiction writers need not make up intelligent alien species out of whole cloth; they should instead look to all the strange and wonderful insect species on Earth for inspiration, such as termites, prehistoric dragonflies, and honeybees. 

To further highlight his point, Wilson describes an imagined species of intelligent “Supertermite” aliens, basing all of their traits on existing or extinct insect species on Earth. The society he describes is very different from any human culture. Wilson believes that even though humans and this Supertermite species would be radically different from one another, they would be able to communicate with one another through the universal languages of science and mathematics.