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. WILSONIn 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. WILSONPolitical ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.
E. O. WILSONI 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.
E. O. WILSONA 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.
E. O. WILSONJehovah 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.
E. O. WILSONOf course, there is no reconciliation between the theory of evolution by natural selection and the traditional religious view of the origin of the human mind.
E. O. WILSONWe should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.
E. O. WILSONThe 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.
E. O. WILSONThere doesn’t seem to be any other way of creating the next green revolution without GMOs.
E. O. WILSONWhat’s been gratifying is to live long enough to see molecular biology and evolutionary biology growing toward each other and uniting in research efforts.
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.
E. O. WILSONNature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
E. O. WILSONBy any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.
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.
E. O. WILSONIf those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way.
E. O. WILSONThe 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.
E. O. WILSON