QUOTES by E. O. Wilson
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In some ways, I had a traditional 'old South' upbringing, meaning that I spent some time in a military school, and acquired an inoculum of the military ethic that is still with me today: honor, duty, loyalty.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
So in my freshman year at the University of Alabama, learning the literature on evolution, what was known about it biologically, just gradually transformed me by taking me out of literalism and increasingly into a more secular, scientific view of the world.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
I thought perhaps it should be recognized that religious people, including fundamentalists, are quite intelligent, many of them are highly educated, and they should be treated with complete respect.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
The biological evolutionary perception of life and of human qualities is radically different from that of traditional religion, whether it's Southern Baptist or Islam or any religion that believes in a supernatural supervalance over humanity.
Quote by -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.
Quote by -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.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
I grew up as a Southern Baptist with strict adherence to the Bible, which I read as a youngster.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we're hard-wired to form tribalistic religions.
Quote by -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.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
For me, the peculiar qualities of faith are a logical outcome of this level of biological organization.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
America in particular imposes an horrendous burden on the world. We have this wonderful standard of living but it comes at enormous cost.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God?
Quote by -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.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
Real biologists who actually do the research will tell you that they almost never find a phenomenon, no matter how odd or irrelevant it looks when they first see it, that doesn't prove to serve a function. The outcome itself may be due to small accidents of evolution.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
The historical circumstance of interest is that the tropical rain forests have persisted over broad parts of the continents since their origins as stronghold of the flowering plants 150 million years ago.
Quote by -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.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
'The Creation' presents an argument for saving biological diversity on Earth. Most of the book is for as broad an audience as possible.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
It's the technique, I think, of writing a novel that is difficult for a nonfiction writer.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
Even as empiricism is winning the mind, transcendentalism continues to win the heart.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
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.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
When you get into the whole field of exploring, probably 90 percent of the kinds of organisms, plants, animals and especially microorganisms and tiny invertebrate animals are unknown. Then you realize that we live on a relatively unexplored plan.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn't stack up against a two-millennium-old funeral high mass.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
All three of the Abrahamic religions were born and nurtured in arid, disturbed environments.
Quote by -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.
Quote by -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.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
I doubt that most people with short-term thinking love the natural world enough to save it.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
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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People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will find a way to keep ancestral spirits alive.
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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.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
One thing I did was grow up as an ardent naturalist. I never grew out of my bug period.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
We don't need to clear the 4 to 6 percent of the Earth's surface remaining in tropical rain forests, with most of the animal and plant species living there.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
But I feel music has a very important role in ritual activity, and that being able to join in musical activity, along with dancing, could have been necessary at a very early stage of human culture.
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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.
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In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
I was a senior in high school when I decided I wanted to work on ants as a career. I just fell in love with them, and have never regretted it.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson
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.
Quote by -E. O. Wilson