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?
E. O. WILSONAnts are the dominant insects of the world, and they’ve had a great impact on habitats almost all over the land surface of the world for more than 50-million years.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
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Ants make up two-thirds of the biomass of all the insects. There are millions of species of organisms and we know almost nothing about them.
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I’m very much a Christian in ideals and ethics, especially in terms of belief in fairness, a deep set obligation to others, and the virtues of charity, tolerance and generosity that we associate with traditional Christian teaching.
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Science for its part will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition.
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The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.
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Ants are the dominant insects of the world, and they’ve had a great impact on habitats almost all over the land surface of the world for more than 50-million years.
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Jehovah had nothing to say to Moses and the others about the care of the planet. He had plenty to say about tribal loyalty and conquest.
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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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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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Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice.
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If we were to wipe out insects alone on this planet, the rest of life and humanity with it would mostly disappear from the land. Within a few months.
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When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.
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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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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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Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the ‘environmentalist’ view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.
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Science and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds… is not productive.
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People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will find a way to keep ancestral spirits alive.
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The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats.
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It’s obvious that the key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better quality of life – for 8 billion or more people – without wrecking the environment entirely in the attempt.
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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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If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago.
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Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals.
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If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.
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If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way.
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People respect nonfiction but they read novels.
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True character arises from a deeper well than religion.
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An 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.
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