E. O. Wilson Quotes
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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.
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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.
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America in particular imposes an horrendous burden on the world. We have this wonderful standard of living but it comes at enormous cost.
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We are not compelled to believe in biological uniformity in order to affirm human freedom and dignity.
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What's been gratifying is to live long enough to see molecular biology and evolutionary biology growing toward each other and uniting in research efforts.
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So important are insects and other land-dwelling arthropods that if all were to disappear, humanity probably could not last more than a few months.
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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.
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All three of the Abrahamic religions were born and nurtured in arid, disturbed environments.
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This planet can be a paradise in the 22nd century.
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The biological evolutionary perception of life and of human qualities is radically different from that of traditional religion, whether it's Southern Baptist or Islam or any religion that believes in a supernatural supervalance over humanity.
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Cultural evolution is Lamarckian and very fast, whereas biological evolution is Darwinian and usually very slow.
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I had in mind a message, although I hope it doesn't intrude too badly, persuading Americans, and especially Southerners, of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.
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Biology has finally opened up to achieve a unifying embrace of all its disciplines. We're seeing the renaissance of what could be called scientific natural history, which makes available the groundwork - the foundation work - of what is actually on the Earth.
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Nationalism and racism, to take two examples, are the culturally nurtured outgrowths of simple tribalism.
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We can search among the unconscious, emotion-laden learning rules for the kind of behavior most directly influenced by genetic evolution.
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One difference between ants and humans is that while ants send their old women off to war, humans send their young men.
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In my heart, I'm an Alabaman who went up north to work.
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The three extreme kinds of schizophrenia are unmistakable: the haunted paranoid surrounded by his imaginary community of spies and assassins, the clownish, sometimes incontinent hebephrenic, and the frozen catatonic.
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I'm very much a Christian in ideals and ethics, especially in terms of belief in fairness, a deep set obligation to others, and the virtues of charity, tolerance and generosity that we associate with traditional Christian teaching.
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Ants make up two-thirds of the biomass of all the insects. There are millions of species of organisms and we know almost nothing about them.
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Evidence has... been adduced that schizophrenia is widespread in other kinds of human societies. ...and they form a substantial fraction of the clientele of the tribal shamans and healers.
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We ought to recognize that religious strife is not the consequence of differences among people. It's about conflicts between creation stories.
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In early history phobias might have provided the extra margin needed to insure survival...
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It often occurs to me that if, against all odds, there is a judgmental God and heaven, it will come to pass that when the pearly gates open, those who had the valor to think for themselves will be escorted to the head of the line, garlanded, and given their own personal audience.