E. O. Wilson Quotes About Science

Quotes about: Science

• If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

  E. O. Wilson

  Science, Years, Environmental

• Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice. Science for its part will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition.

  E. O. Wilson

  Science, Religion, Tests

• Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands. Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects.

  E. O. Wilson

  Science, Cutting, Numbers

  "Naturally Good: A Behavioral History of Moral Development from Charles Darwin to E.O. Wilson". Book by John Henry Morgan, 2005.

• The genes hold culture on a leash. The leash is very long, but inevitably values will be constrained in accordance with their effects on the human gene pool. The brain is a product of evolution. Human behavior-like the deepest capacities for emotional respone which drive and guide it-is the circuitous technique by which human genetic material has been and will be kept intact.

  E. O. Wilson

  Science, Emotional, Long

• From the freedom to explore comes the joy of learning. From knowledge acquired by personal initiative arises the desire for more knowledge. And from mastery of the novel and beautiful world awaiting every child comes self-confidence.

  E. O. Wilson

  Beautiful, Freedom, Children

• 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

  Science, Wish, Looks

• Known as the biosphere to scientists and as the creation to theologians, all of life together consists of a membrane around earth so thin that it cannot be seen edgewise from a satellite yet so prodigiously diverse that only a tiny fraction of species have been discovered and named.

  E. O. Wilson

  Science, Discovery, Diversity

• The cutting of primeval forest and other disasters, fueled by the demands of growing human populations, are the overriding threat to biological diversity everywhere.

  E. O. Wilson

  Cutting, Science, Diversity

  "The Diversity of Life". Book by E. O. Wilson, 1992.

• In the process of natural selection, then, any device that can insert a higher proportion of certain genes into subsequent generations will come to characterize the species.

  E. O. Wilson

  Science, Generations, Evolution

• To be anthropocentric is to remain unaware of the limits of human nature, the significance of biological processes underlying human behavior, and the deeper meaning of long-term genetic evolution.

  E. O. Wilson

  Science, Long, Limits

• Biology is a science of three dimensions. The first is the study of each species across all levels of biological organization, molecule to cell to organism to population to ecosystem. The second dimension is the diversity of all species in the biosphere. The third dimension is the history of each species in turn, comprising both its genetic evolution and the environmental change that drove the evolution. Biology, by growing in all three dimensions, is progressing toward unification and will continue to do so.

  E. O. Wilson

  Science, Ecosystems, Organization

• Let us see how high we can fly before the sun melts the wax in our wings.

  E. O. Wilson

  Ambition, Knowledge, Science

  "Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge". Book by E. O. Wilson (Chapter One: The Ionian Enchantment), www.nytimes.com. 1998.

• 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

  Loss, Science, Intellectual

• The time has come to link ecology to economic and human development. When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all. What is happening to the rain forests of Madagascar and Brazil will affect us all.

  E. O. Wilson

  Rain, Knowledge, Science

• The growth of a naturalist is like the growth of a musician or athlete: excellence for the talented, lifelong enjoyment for the rest, benefit for humanity.

  E. O. Wilson

  Athlete, Science, Humanity

• [The natural world cleans water, pollinates plants and provides pharmaceuticals, among many other gifts.] Thirty trillion dollars worth of services, scot-free to humanity, every year.

  E. O. Wilson

  Science, Years, Water

• Biophilia, if it exists, and I believe it exists, is the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms.

  E. O. Wilson

  Believe, Science, Emotional

• 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

  Science, Unique, Clouds

• In a purely technical sense, each species of higher organism-beetle, moss, and so forth, is richer in information than a Caravaggio painting, Mozart symphony, or any other great work of art.

  E. O. Wilson

  Art, Science, Symphony

• 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

  Knowledge, Science, Neurons

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