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No species ... possesses a purpose beyond the imperatives created by genetic history ... The human mind is a device for survival and reproduction, and reason is just one of its various techniques.
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
Reason
Technique
Genetics
Human
Survival
Reproduction
Humans
Various
Genetic
Mind
Species
Imperatives
Created
Device
Beyond
Possesses
Purpose
Techniques
History
Devices
More quotes by E. O. Wilson
People yearn to be in one of the best--a combat marine regiment, an elite college, the executive committee of a company, a religious sect, a fraternity, a garden club--any collectivity that can be compared favorably with other, competing groups.
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If we were to wipe out insects alone on this planet, the rest of life and humanity with it would mostly disappear from the land. Within a few months.
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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
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.
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For me, the peculiar qualities of faith are a logical outcome of this level of biological organization.
E. O. Wilson
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
I turned to the teeming small creatures that can be held between the thumb and forefinger: the little things that compose the foundation of our ecosystems, the little things, as I like to say, who run the world.
E. O. Wilson
Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them.
E. O. Wilson
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
If everyone agreed to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land (3.5 billion acres) would support about 10 billion people.
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.
E. O. Wilson
The human juggernaut is permanently eroding Earth's ancient biosphere.
E. O. Wilson
Humanity needs a vision of an expanding and unending future.
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.
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.
E. O. Wilson
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
One thing I did was grow up as an ardent naturalist. I never grew out of my bug period.
E. O. Wilson
The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.
E. O. Wilson
It may be argued that to know one kind of beetle is to know them all. But a species is not like a molecule in a cloud of molecules-it is a unique population.
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[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