Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society.
E. O. WILSONAn individual ant, even though it has a brain about a millionth of a size of a human being’s, can learn a maze; the kind we use is a simple rat maze in a laboratory. They can learn it about one-half as fast as a rat.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
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Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure.
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Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we’re hard-wired to form tribalistic religions.
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This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.
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Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.
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We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become.
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The essence of humanity’s spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and the empiricist world views?
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I had reached a point in my career in which I was ready to try something new in my writing, and the idea of a novel has always been in the back of my mind.
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Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
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We ought to recognize that religious strife is not the consequence of differences among people. It’s about conflicts between creation stories.
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It’s always been a great survival value for people to believe they belong to a superior tribe. That’s just in human relationships.
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Willing to try to get a better atmosphere through a demonstration of democratic principles, fairness and cooperation, a better product, those will win in the end.
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Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals.
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Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.
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Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
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Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them.
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