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.
E. O. WILSONAnts are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
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This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.
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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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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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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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If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way.
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Companies that are willing to share, to withhold in order to further the growth of the company.
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In some ways, I had a traditional ‘old South’ upbringing, meaning that I spent some time in a military school, and acquired an
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When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.
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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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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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Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice.
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True character arises from a deeper well than religion.
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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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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.
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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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