Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we're hard-wired to form tribalistic religions. "

Related Quotes:

" Because the living environment is what really sustains us. "

" Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society. "

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

" Science and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds... is not productive. "

" People respect nonfiction but they read novels. "

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

" The work on ants has profoundly affected the way I think about humans. "

" We ought to recognize that religious strife is not the consequence of differences among people. It's about conflicts between creation stories. "

" It's the technique, I think, of writing a novel that is difficult for a nonfiction writer. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" In some ways, I had a traditional 'old South' upbringing, meaning that I spent some time in a military school, and acquired an inoculum of the military ethic that is still with me today: honor, duty, loyalty. "

" 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. "

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

" The variety of genes on the planet in viruses exceeds, or is likely to exceed, that in all of the rest of life combined. "

" I grew up as a Southern Baptist with strict adherence to the Bible, which I read as a youngster. "

" The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us. "

" Our brain is mapping the world. Often that map is distorted, but it's a map with constant immediate sensory input. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" The two major challenges for the 21st century are to improve the economic situation of the majority and save as much of the planet as we can. "

" I doubt that most people with short-term thinking love the natural world enough to save it. "

" Ants are the dominant insects of the world, and they've had a great impact on habitats almost all over the land surface of the world for more than 50-million years. "

" Every kid has a bug period... I never grew out of mine. "

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

" True character arises from a deeper well than religion. "

" I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves. "