Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.
E. O. WILSONA 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.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
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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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Because the living environment is what really sustains us.
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If we were to wipe out insects alone on this planet, the rest of life and humanity with it would mostly disappear from the land. Within a few months.
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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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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 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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True character arises from a deeper well than religion.
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The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable.
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Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice.
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Every kid has a bug period… I never grew out of mine.
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Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we’re hard-wired to form tribalistic religions.
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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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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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If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago.
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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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