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

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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. "

" We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity. "

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

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

" 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. "

" One thing I did was grow up as an ardent naturalist. I never grew out of my bug period. "

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

" 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. "

" Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals. "

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

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

" It's always been a dream of mine, of exploring the living world, of classifying all the species and finding out what makes up the biosphere. "

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

" Well, let me tell you, ants are the dominant insects. They make up as much as a quarter of the biomass of all insects in the world. They are the principal predators. They're the cemetery workers. "

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

" 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. "

" Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God? "

" Real biologists who actually do the research will tell you that they almost never find a phenomenon, no matter how odd or irrelevant it looks when they first see it, that doesn't prove to serve a function. The outcome itself may be due to small accidents of evolution. "

" Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The ant world is a tumult, a noisy world of pheromones being passed back and forth. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" We have decommissioned natural selection and must now look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become. "

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

" 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. "

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

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