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In science, obsessiveness under psychological control can be a virtue.

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
Psychological
Control
Virtue
Science

More quotes by E. O. Wilson

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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.
E. O. Wilson
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True character arises from a deeper well than religion.
E. O. Wilson
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Human beings function better if they are deceived by their genes into thinking that there is a disinterested objective morality binding upon them, which all should obey.
E. O. Wilson
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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.
E. O. Wilson
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There are millions and millions of species, including organisms most people have never heard of. There is so much that waits to be told. We don't know the functions of most of them, but they may be more vital for the planet's future sustainability than we can even dream. And we have to find out we need to be doing this sort of study.
E. O. Wilson
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The price of these failures has been a loss of moral consensus, a greater sense of helplessness about the human condition. ... The intellectual solution to the first dilemma can be achieved by a deeper and more courageous examination of human nature that combines the findings of biology with those of the social sciences.
E. O. Wilson
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Only in the last moment in history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world.
E. O. Wilson
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If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.
E. O. Wilson
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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
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In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.
E. O. Wilson
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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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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.
E. O. Wilson
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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
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Once I feel I'm right, I have enjoyed provoking.
E. O. Wilson
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The world depends on fungi, because they are major players in the cycling of materials and energy around the world.
E. O. Wilson
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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.
E. O. Wilson
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An Armageddon is approaching at the beginning of the third millennium. But it is not the cosmic war and fiery collapse of mankind foretold in sacred scripture. It is the wreckage of the planet by an exuberantly plentiful and ingenious humanity.
E. O. Wilson
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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.
E. O. Wilson
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Human nature is deeper and broader than the artificial contrivance of any existing culture.
E. O. Wilson
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There can be no purpose more enspiriting than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us.
E. O. Wilson