The variety of genes on the planet in viruses exceeds, or is likely to exceed, that in all of the rest of life combined.
E. O. WILSONReligious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we’re hard-wired to form tribalistic religions.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
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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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Every kid has a bug period… I never grew out of mine.
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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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We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become.
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Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice.
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Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.
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If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.
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Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God?
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In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.
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Well, let me tell you, ants are the dominant insects. They make up as much as a quarter of the biomass of all insects in the world. They are the principal predators. They’re the cemetery workers.
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Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
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Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.
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Of 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.
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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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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.
E. O. WILSON