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. WILSONScience for its part will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition.
More E. O. Wilson Quotes
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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.
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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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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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The essence of humanity’s spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and the empiricist world views?
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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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The education of women is the best way to save the environment.
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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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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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Ants make up two-thirds of the biomass of all the insects. There are millions of species of organisms and we know almost nothing about them.
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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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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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When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.
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Religious beliefs evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of religions is not a weakness but their essential strength.
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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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True character arises from a deeper well than religion.
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Every kid has a bug period… I never grew out of mine.
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Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them.
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There is no better high than discovery.
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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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Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice.
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We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become.
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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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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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We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.
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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.
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In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.
E. O. WILSON