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.
E. O. WILSONAnts have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
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It’s always been a great survival value for people to believe they belong to a superior tribe. That’s just in human relationships.
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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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One thing I did was grow up as an ardent naturalist. I never grew out of my bug period.
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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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Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure.
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An 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.
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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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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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This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.
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Ants 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.
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By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.
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Because the living environment is what really sustains us.
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Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
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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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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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If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.
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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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The variety of genes on the planet in viruses exceeds, or is likely to exceed, that in all of the rest of life combined.
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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.
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Science and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds… is not productive.
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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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I 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.
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Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
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