Our brain is mapping the world. Often that map is distorted, but it’s a map with constant immediate sensory input.
E. O. WILSONIf insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
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Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.
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Persist! The world needs all you can give.
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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 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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Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure.
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Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.
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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 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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Every kid has a bug period… I never grew out of mine.
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Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society.
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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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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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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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Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.
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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.
E. O. WILSON