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E. O. Wilson

E. O. Wilson Quotes

Biologist

E. O. Wilson is a renowned American biologist, born on June 10, 1929. He has made significant contributions to the fields of entomology, sociobiology, and anthropology. Best known for his research on ants, he is often referred to as the 'father of ants'. His book 'Sociobiology: The New Science' had a profound impact on both biology and the social sciences.

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Famous E. O. Wilson Quotes

“We ought to recognize that religious strife is not the consequence of differences among people. It's about conflicts between creation stories.”

People Stories Differences Religious Creation Ought Conflict Consequence Strife Creation Stories

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Companies that are willing to share, to withhold in order to further the growth of the company, willing to try to get a better atmosphere through a demonstration of democratic principles, fairness and cooperation, a better product, those will win in the end.”

Trying Ends Order Winning Growth Company Principles Share Willing Products Democratic Atmosphere Cooperation Fairness Demonstration Willing To Try

Author:E. O. Wilson

“I've found that good dialogue tells you not only what people are saying or how they're communicating but it tells you a great deal - by dialect and tone, content and circumstance - about the quality of the character.”

People Character Found Deals Quality Circumstances Communicate Dialogue Tone Dialect

Author: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.”

People Problem Humanity Quality Environment Century Keys Population Obvious Billions Quality Of Life World Population Human Population Population Problem Better Quality Of Life

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the 'environmentalist' view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.”

World Humans Real Views Effort Calling Activity Cease Real World Mainstream Environmentalism Environmentalist Human Activity World View Lobbying

Author: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.”

Firsts Looks May Real Matter Evolution Prove Research Function Dues Accidents Odd Outcomes Phenomenon Irrelevant Biologist

Author:E. O. Wilson

“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.”

Choices Growth Accepting Economic Behavior Ethics Environmental Population Economic Growth

Book:Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

“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.”

Two Theory Mathematician Altruism Colleagues Selection Harvard

Author:E. O. Wilson

“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.”

Way Stills Today School Military Duty Honor Ethics South Loyalty Traditional Upbringing Military School

Author: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.”

Kind Whole Realizing Animal Plans Fields Percent Plant Tiny Organisms Exploring Unexplored Microorganisms Invertebrates

Author: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.”

Feels Humans Has Beens Important Able Culture Roles Stage Activity Dancing Musical Ritual Could Have Been

Author:E. O. Wilson

“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.”

People Way Needs Form Spirit Purpose Alive Sacred Narrative

Author: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.”

Belief Religious Groups Essentials Weakness Tribes Competing Selection Religious Belief

Author: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.”

World Years Literature Views Known Evolution University Transformed Secular Alabama Freshman Freshman Year

Author: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.”

Needs Earth Animal Clear Tree Percent Rain Plant Species Surface Forests Tropical

Author: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.”

Humans Kind Use Individual Human Beings Simple Brain Half Size Rats Ants Laboratory Mazes One Half

Author: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.”

World Years Millions Land Impact Surface Dominant Insects Ants Habitat

Author:E. O. Wilson

“But once the ants and termites jumped the high barrier that prevents the vast variety of evolving animal groups from becoming fully social, they dominated the world.”

World Social Animal Groups Becoming Variety Evolve Barriers Ants

Author:E. O. Wilson

“I had in mind a message, although I hope it doesn't intrude too badly, persuading Americans, and especially Southerners, of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.”

Mind Natural Environment Land Messages Importance Critical Wildlife Natural Environment Vanishing Southerner Persuading

Author: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.”

Writing Trying Mind Ideas Careers Novel Ready Something New Of My Mind

Author: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.”

Way Humans Problem Honest Becoming Organized Becoming More Organized Religion Tribalism

Author: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.”

People Should Religious Intelligent Including Treated Educated

Author: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.”

Mind Humans Courses Natural Religious Views Theory Evolution Traditional Human Mind Selection Reconciliation Natural Selection Theory Of Evolution Religious Views

Author: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.”

Believe Humans Different Humanity Quality Perception Islam Traditional Southern Baptists Human Qualities Perception Of Life Southern Baptist

Author: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.”

Years Interest Millions Circumstances Rain Years Ago Plant Historical Forests Broads Continents Rainy Day Flowering Tropical Strongholds

Author:E. O. Wilson

“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.”

World Wells Let Me Workers Quarters Principal Dominant Insects Ants Predator Cemetery Biomass

Author:E. O. Wilson

“What's been gratifying is to live long enough to see molecular biology and evolutionary biology growing toward each other and uniting in research efforts.”

Long Enough Effort Growing Research Biology Uniting Evolutionary Biology Molecular Biology

Author:E. O. Wilson

“One planet, one experiment.”

Vision Environment Planets Future Environmental Experiments Environmentalism Sustainable Development

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Human nature is deeper and broader than the artificial contrivance of any existing culture.”

Humans Culture Human Nature Deeper Artificial

Author:E. O. Wilson

“People would rather believe than know.”

People Knows Believe Environmental

Author:E. O. Wilson

“It often occurs to me that if, against all odds, there is a judgmental God and heaven, it will come to pass that when the pearly gates open, those who had the valor to think for themselves will be escorted to the head of the line, garlanded, and given their own personal audience.”

Ifs Thinking Given Heaven Lines Audience Gates Odds Judgmental Valor Against All Odds Against The Odds Pearly Gates

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Adults forget the depths of languor into which the adolescent mind decends with ease. They are prone to undervalue the mental growth that occurs during daydreaming and aimless wandering”

Mind Growth Forget Adults Depth Wander Ease Daydreaming

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Science and technology are what we can do; morality is what we agree we should or should not do.”

Should Can Do Technology Morality Agree Science And Technology

Author:E. O. Wilson

“In the end ... success or failure will come down to an ethical decision, one on which those now living will be judged for generations to come.”

Ends Decision Generations Ethical Judged Success Or Failure

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species”

Species Socialism Working It

Author:E. O. Wilson

“The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.”

Art Complexity Reductionism

Book:Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

“True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally the integrated self, wherein personal decisions feel good and true. Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others.”

“Humanity is part of nature, a species that evolved among other species. The more closely we identify ourselves with the rest of life, the more quickly we will be able to discover the sources of human sensibility and acquire the knowledge on which an enduring ethic, a sense of preferred direction, can be built.”

Humans Able Humanity Source Ethics Built Species Endure Acquire Sensibility Rest Of Life

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Humanity is a biological species, living in a biological environment, because like all species, we are exquisitely adapted in everything: from our behavior, to our genetics, to our physiology, to that particular environment in which we live. The earth is our home. Unless we preserve the rest of life, as a sacred duty, we will be endangering ourselves by destroying the home in which we evolved, and on which we completely depend.”

Home Earth Humanity Environment Particular Duty Depends Behavior Sacred Species Preserves Destroying Genetics Adapted Physiology Rest Of Life

Author:E. O. Wilson

“The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a decent standard of living while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible.”

People Firsts Challenges Century Standards Twenties Raises Decent Standards Of Living Rest Of Life

Author:E. O. Wilson

“All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among the often hard-edged, badly socialized scientists with whom I associate. Tone of voice means a great deal to me in the course of debate. I despise the arrogance and doting self-regard so frequently found among the very bright.”

Mean Self Hard Courses Found Voice Deals Practice Scientist Regard Stores Debate Manners Tone Arrogance Despise Associates Civility Scarce Good Manners

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.”

“You teach me, I forget. You show me, I remember. You involve me, I understand.”

Shows Remember Forget Teach Show Me Involvement Forget You Remember You Remembers You

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Ninety-nine percent of all species that ever lived are now extinct.”

Nature Animal Percent Species Nine Ninety Ninety Nine

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates the very concept of life.”

Wells Spiritual Humanity Spirituality Knowing Creatures Concepts Exalted Living Creatures

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Biology is a science of three dimensions. The first is the study of each species across all levels of biological organization, molecule to cell to organism to population to ecosystem. The second dimension is the diversity of all species in the biosphere. The third dimension is the history of each species in turn, comprising both its genetic evolution and the environmental change that drove the evolution. Biology, by growing in all three dimensions, is progressing toward unification and will continue to do so.”

“In the process of natural selection, then, any device that can insert a higher proportion of certain genes into subsequent generations will come to characterize the species.”

Science Certain Process Natural Generations Evolution Higher Species Proportion Devices Genes Selection Natural Selection Insert

Author:E. O. Wilson

“To be anthropocentric is to remain unaware of the limits of human nature, the significance of biological processes underlying human behavior, and the deeper meaning of long-term genetic evolution.”

Humans Long Science Process Term Human Nature Evolution Limits Behavior Deeper Long Term Significance Human Behavior Deeper Meaning

Author:E. O. Wilson

“The growth of a naturalist is like the growth of a musician or athlete: excellence for the talented, lifelong enjoyment for the rest, benefit for humanity.”

Science Humanity Growth Benefits Musician Excellence Athlete Enjoyment Lifelong Naturalist

Author:E. O. Wilson

“Thirty trillion dollars worth of services, scot-free to humanity, every year.”

Years Humanity Dollars Thirty Scots

Author:E. O. Wilson

About the Author

Born: June 10, 1929
Known for: Biologist
Quotes: 273

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