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.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
-
-
Science for its part will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition.
E. O. WILSON -
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.
E. O. WILSON -
We ought to recognize that religious strife is not the consequence of differences among people. It’s about conflicts between creation stories.
E. O. WILSON -
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. WILSON -
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.
E. O. WILSON -
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.
E. O. WILSON -
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.
E. O. WILSON -
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.
E. O. WILSON -
Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society.
E. O. WILSON -
When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.
E. O. WILSON -
Religious beliefs evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of religions is not a weakness but their essential strength.
E. O. WILSON -
People respect nonfiction but they read novels.
E. O. WILSON -
In some ways, I had a traditional ‘old South’ upbringing, meaning that I spent some time in a military school, and acquired an
E. O. WILSON -
Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we’re hard-wired to form tribalistic religions.
E. O. WILSON -
If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.
E. O. WILSON