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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. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

E. O. Wilson

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E. O. Wilson
Age: 95
Born: 1929
Born: June 10
Autobiographer
Biologist
Ecologist
Entomologist
Ethologist
Evolutionary Biologist
Myrmecologist
Naturalist
Novelist
Science Writer
Birmingham
Alabama
E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne
EO Wilson
E O Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson
Wilson
Edward Wilson
Junior
Natural
Forgiving
Habitats
Process
Diversity
Habitat
Take
Likely
Descendants
Going
Destruction
Genetic
Years
Species
Conservation
Loss
Correct
Millions
Folly
Least
Forgive

More quotes by E. O. Wilson

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The search for knowledge is in our genes. It was put there by our distant ancestors who spread across the world, and it's never going to be quenched.
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The cost of scientific advance is the humbling recognition that reality was not constructed to be easily grasped by the human mind. This is the cardinal tenet of scientific understanding. Our species and its ways of thinking are a product of evolution, not the purpose of evolution.
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In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.
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I will argue that every scrap of biological diversity is priceless, to be learned and cherished, and never to be surrendered without a struggle.
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When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.
E. O. Wilson
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Theology made no provision for evolution.
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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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If enough species are extinguished, will the ecosystems collapse, and will the extinction of most other species follow soon afterward? The only answer anyone can give is: possibly. By the time we find out, however, it might be too late. One planet, one experiment.
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Every kid has a bug period... I never grew out of mine.
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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.
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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.
E. O. Wilson
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Darwin's dice have rolled badly for Earth. The human species is, in a word, an environmental abnormality. Perhaps a law of evolution is that intelligence usually extinguishes itself.
E. O. Wilson
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All three of the Abrahamic religions were born and nurtured in arid, disturbed environments.
E. O. Wilson
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Wonderful theory, wrong species.
E. O. Wilson
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We are compelled to drive toward total knowledge, right down to the levels of the neuron and the gene. When we have progressed enough to explain ourselves in these mechanistic terms...the result might be hard to accept.
E. O. Wilson
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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.
E. O. Wilson
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We ought to recognize that religious strife is not the consequence of differences among people. It's about conflicts between creation stories.
E. O. Wilson
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It's always been a dream of mine, of exploring the living world, of classifying all the species and finding out what makes up the biosphere.
E. O. Wilson
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Destroying a tropical rainforest for profit is like burning all the paintings of the Louvre to cook dinner.
E. O. Wilson
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The living environment is the biosphere, the thin layer around the world of living organisms. We're part of that. Our existence is dependent on it in ways that people haven't even begun to appreciate. Our existence depends not just on its existence, but its stability and its richness.
E. O. Wilson