Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society.
E. O. WILSONWhen you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
-
-
Every kid has a bug period… I never grew out of mine.
E. O. WILSON -
Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals.
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 -
If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way.
E. O. WILSON -
Companies that are willing to share, to withhold in order to further the growth of the company.
E. O. WILSON -
Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice.
E. O. WILSON -
If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.
E. O. WILSON -
Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.
E. O. WILSON -
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. 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 -
If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago.
E. O. WILSON -
It’s obvious that the key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better quality of life – for 8 billion or more people – without wrecking the environment entirely in the attempt.
E. O. WILSON -
Persist! The world needs all you can give.
E. O. WILSON -
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. WILSON -
Because the living environment is what really sustains us.
E. O. WILSON