In 2010, my two Harvard mathematician colleagues and I dismantled kin-selection theory, which was the reigning theory of the origin of altruism at the time.
E. O. WILSONI’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.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
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We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.
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What’s been gratifying is to live long enough to see molecular biology and evolutionary biology growing toward each other and uniting in research efforts.
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The two major challenges for the 21st century are to improve the economic situation of the majority and save as much of the planet as we can.
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Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.
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Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.
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Our brain is mapping the world. Often that map is distorted, but it’s a map with constant immediate sensory input.
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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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A very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.
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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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Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.
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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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The education of women is the best way to save the environment.
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Ideas emerge when a part of the real or imagined world is studied for its own sake.
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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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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.
E. O. WILSON