Quote

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.

E. O. Wilson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Circumstances
Broad
Persisted
Millions
Plants
Strongholds
Since
Forests
Tropical
Interest
Historical
Flowering
Years
Plant
Origins
Parts
Circumstance
Million
Continents
Rain
Broads
Stronghold

More quotes by E. O. Wilson

Image
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
Image
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.
E. O. Wilson
Image
Evolution by natural selection is not an idle hypothesis. The genetic variation on which selection acts is well understood in principle all the way down to the molecular level.
E. O. Wilson
Image
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
Image
And pigs may fly. And we may be able to terraform and send surface populations to Mars. And Jesus may come next week anyway, so it doesn't matter one way or the other. All these crazy things run through people's minds.
E. O. Wilson
Image
[T]he true natural sciences lock together in theory and evidence to form the ineradicable technical base of modern civilization. The pseudosciences satisfy personal psychological needs... but lack the ideas or the means to contribute to the technical base.
E. O. Wilson
Image
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
Image
The love of complexity without reductionism makes art the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.
E. O. Wilson
Image
We've got paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technologies.
E. O. Wilson
Image
Homo sapiens, the first truly free species, is about to decommission natural selection, the force that made us. Soon we must look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become.
E. O. Wilson
Image
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
Image
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.
E. O. Wilson
Image
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
Image
Overall, the human brain is the most complex object known in the universe - known, that is, to itself.
E. O. Wilson
Image
The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.
E. O. Wilson
Image
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.
E. O. Wilson
Image
The toxic mix of religion and tribalism has become so dangerous as to justify taking seriously the alternative view, that humanism based on science is the effective antidote, the light and the way at last placed before us.
E. O. Wilson
Image
The ideal scientist thinks like a poet and works like a bookkeeper
E. O. Wilson
Image
No statistical proofs exist that prayer reduces illness and mortality, except perhaps through a psychogenic enhancement of the immune system if it were otherwise the whole world would pray continuously.
E. O. Wilson
Image
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