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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
Loss
Correct
Millions
Folly
Least
Forgive
Natural
Forgiving
Habitats
Process
Diversity
Habitat
Take
Likely
Descendants
Going
Destruction
Genetic
Years
Species
Conservation

More quotes by 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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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 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.
E. O. Wilson
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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.
E. O. Wilson
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Mating Strategy is influenced by the cardinal fact that women have more at stake in sexual activity than men, because of the limited age span in which they can reproduce and the heavy investment required of them with each child conceived. In courtship women consistently emphasize commitment of resources and material security.
E. O. Wilson
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The extinctions ongoing worldwide promise to be at least as great as the mass extinction that occurred at the end of the age of dinosaurs.
E. O. Wilson
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[W]hen the martyr's righteous forebrain is exploded by the executioner's bullet and his mind disintegrates, what then? Can we safely assume that all those millions of neural circuits will be reconstituted in an immaterial state, so the conscious mind carries on?
E. O. Wilson
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Jungles and grasslands are the logical destinations, and towns and farmland the labyrinths that people have imposed between them sometime in the past. I cherish the green enclaves accidentally left behind.
E. O. Wilson
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In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.
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
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The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions medieval institutions and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.
E. O. Wilson
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That's what the best global conservation organisations and the American government (and other environmentally inclined governments, such as Sweden and the Netherlands) are doing: protecting the remaining wild environment. This is the equivalent of getting a patient to the emergency room - keep them alive and then figure out how to save them.
E. O. Wilson
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The human juggernaut is permanently eroding Earth's ancient biosphere.
E. O. Wilson
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We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. 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.
E. O. Wilson
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We've got paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technologies.
E. O. Wilson
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Overall, the human brain is the most complex object known in the universe - known, that is, to itself.
E. O. Wilson
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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.
E. O. Wilson
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Wonderful theory, wrong species.
E. O. Wilson
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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.
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