Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.
E. O. WILSONIn many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
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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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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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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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By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.
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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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Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become.
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Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
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