Eminent scientist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Dr. Edward O. Wilson returned to the Capstone on April 21, 1999, to accept the 1999 Clarence Cason Award for Non-Fiction Writing.

Wilson, the only American to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Medal of Science, graduated from the University with a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1949 and a master’s in 1950. He completed his doctorate at Harvard in 1955, where he has stayed — now residing as a research professor.

A founder of the science of sociobiology, Wilson was born in Birmingham and raised in Mobile. Enroute to being named one of Time magazine’s “25 Most Influential Americans,” Wilson collected 24 honorary degrees and two Pulitzers — one for The Ants (1979) and another for On Human Nature (1991). In 1990 the Royal Swedish Academy awarded him the Crawford Prize, an award many in the sciences consider to be as important as the Nobel Prize.

“Many people know E.O. Wilson as a great scientist, which he is,” said Dr. Bailey Thomson, associate professor of journalism and organizer of the Cason Award program. “But we’re honoring him for his remarkable talent as a writer.”

As part of the ceremonies surrounding the honor, Wilson presented a lecture at the award presentation and banquet. The following day he led a symposium at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel.

The Cason award, named for the founder of UA’s Journalism department, Clarence Cason, is given to non-fiction writers with ties to Alabama who have achieved high distinction.

By Donnie Smith
Class of 2000

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Thanks to science and technology, access to factual knowledge is destined to become global and democratic . . . What then? The answer is clear: synthesis. We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by . . . people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it and make important choices wisely.

E. O Wilson
Washington Post
June 11, 1998

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