E. O. Wilson Quotes - Page 3

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• Science needs the intuition and metaphorical power of the arts, and the arts need the fresh blood of science ... Interpretation is the logical channel of consilient explanation between science and the arts. The arts ... also nourish our craving for the mystical.

  E. O. Wilson

  Art, Blood, Intuition

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• Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals.

  E. O. Wilson

  Struggle, Religion, Atheism

  "Consilience". Book by Edward Osborne Wilson, 1998.

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• The great paradox of determinism and free will, which has held the attention of the wisest of philosophers and psychologists for generations, can be phrased in more biological terms as follows: If our genes are inherited, and our environment is a train of physical events set in motion before we were born, how can there be a truly independent agent within the brain? The agent itself is created by the interaction of the genes and the environment. It would appear that our freedom is only a self delusion.

  E. O. Wilson

  Independent, Self, Brain

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• Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society. If one colony member devotes its life to service over marriage, the individual is of benefit to the society, even though it does not have personal offspring. A soldier going into battle will benefit his country, but he runs a higher risk of death than one who does not. An altruist benefits the group, but a layabout or coward who saves his own energy and reduces his bodily risk passes the resulting social cost to others.

  E. O. Wilson

  Running, Country, Soldier

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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

  Brain, Humans, Complexes

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• I think history has shown that the worst way to [try to] bring people over and actually change public opinion is by insult and applied degradation of them.

  E. O. Wilson

  Thinking, People, Trying

  Source: blog.cleveland.com

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• 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

  Light, Views, Toxic

  "Can Biology Do Better Than Faith?". www.newscientist.com. November 02, 2005.

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• Go as far as you can, [young scientists]. The world needs you badly.

  E. O. Wilson

  Needs, World, Need You

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• I tend to believe that religious dogma is a consequence of evolution.

  E. O. Wilson

  Religious, Believe, Dogma

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• People must belong to a tribe; they yearn to have a purpose larger than themselves. We are obligated by the deepest drives of the human spirit to make ourselves more than animated dust, and we must have a story to tell about where we came from, and why we are here.

  E. O. Wilson

  Dust, People, Purpose

  "Consilience: Unity of Knowledge". Book by E. O. Wilson, www.cnn.com. 1998.

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• Each of these [bacterial] species are masterpieces of evolution. Each has persisted for thousands to millions of years. Each is exquisitely adapted to the environment in which it lives, interlocked with other species to form ecosystems upon which our own lives depend in ways we have not begun even to imagine.

  E. O. Wilson

  Motivation, Inspiration, Years

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• While ants exist in just the right numbers for the rest of the living world, humans have become too numerous. If we were to vanish today, the land environment would return to the fertile balance that existed before the human population explosion. Only a dozen or so species, among which are the crab louse and a mite that lives in the oil glands of our foreheads, depend on us entirely. But if ants were to disappear, tens of thousands of other plants and animal species would perish also, simplifying and weakening land ecosystems almost everywhere.

  E. O. Wilson

  Animal, Land, Ecosystems

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• 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

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• If enough species are extinguished, will the ecosystems collapse, and will the extinction of most other species follow soon afterward? The only answer anyone can give is: possibly. By the time we find out, however, it might be too late. One planet, one experiment.

  E. O. Wilson

  Nature, Ecosystems, Giving

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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

  Reality, Thinking, Understanding

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• There is no better high than discovery.

  E. O. Wilson

  Inspirational, Recovery, Discovery

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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

  Winning, Order, Atmosphere

  "Wilson says selfish people, altruistic groups win: interview". Bloomberg News Interview, www.dailyherald.com. April 17, 2012.

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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

  Real, Views, Effort

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• The laws of biology are written in the language of diversity.

  E. O. Wilson

  Law, Diversity, Language

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• Old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.

  E. O. Wilson

  Faith, Lds, Religion

  "Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge". Book by E. O. Wilson, p. 256, 1998.

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• In the early stages of creation of both art and science, everything in the mind is a story.

  E. O. Wilson

  Art, Mind, Stories

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• The beginning of wisdom, as the Chinese say, is calling things by their right names.

  E. O. Wilson

  Names, Chinese, Calling

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• 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

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• Genius is the summed production of the many with the names of the few attached for easy recall.

  E. O. Wilson

  Names, Genius, Easy

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• The most dangerous of devotions, in my opinion, is the one endemic to Christianity: I was not born to be of this world. With a second life waiting, suffering can be endured - especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of the faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised.

  E. O. Wilson

  Suicidal, People, Waiting

  "Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge". Book by E. O. Wilson, 1998.

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