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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. "

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" We don't need to clear the 4 to 6 percent of the Earth's surface remaining in tropical rain forests, with most of the animal and plant species living there. "

E. O. Wilson

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" Even as empiricism is winning the mind, transcendentalism continues to win the heart. "

" You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give. "

" Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans. "

" It's always been a great survival value for people to believe they belong to a superior tribe. That's just in human relationships. "

" Change will come slowly, across generations, because old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false. "

" America in particular imposes an horrendous burden on the world. We have this wonderful standard of living but it comes at enormous cost. "

" It's obvious that the key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better quality of life - for 8 billion or more people - without wrecking the environment entirely in the attempt. "

" The historical circumstance of interest is that the tropical rain forests have persisted over broad parts of the continents since their origins as stronghold of the flowering plants 150 million years ago. "

" When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all. "

" 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

Behavior

Growth

" 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. "

" For me, the peculiar qualities of faith are a logical outcome of this level of biological organization. "

" All three of the Abrahamic religions were born and nurtured in arid, disturbed environments. "

" The human juggernaut is permanently eroding Earth's ancient biosphere. "

" I've found that good dialogue tells you not only what people are saying or how they're communicating but it tells you a great deal - by dialect and tone, content and circumstance - about the quality of the character. "

" The world depends on fungi, because they are major players in the cycling of materials and energy around the world. "

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

" To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong. "

E. O. Wilson

Wrong

Inquiry

" 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. "

" But once the ants and termites jumped the high barrier that prevents the vast variety of evolving animal groups from becoming fully social, they dominated the world. "

" There is no better high than discovery. "

" I had reached a point in my career in which I was ready to try something new in my writing, and the idea of a novel has always been in the back of my mind. "

" By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified. "

" Religious beliefs evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of religions is not a weakness but their essential strength. "

" 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. "

" So in my freshman year at the University of Alabama, learning the literature on evolution, what was known about it biologically, just gradually transformed me by taking me out of literalism and increasingly into a more secular, scientific view of the world. "

E. O. Wilson

Learning

World

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science. "