E. O. Wilson
E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson, usually cited as E. O. Wilson, is an American biologist, researcher, theorist, naturalistand author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world's leading expert...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth10 June 1929
CountryUnited States of America
discovery intellectual firsts
Nature first, then theory. Or, better, Nature and theory closely intertwined while you throw all your intellectual capital at the subject. Love the organisms for themselves first, then strain for general explanations, and, with good fortune, discoveries will follow. If they don't, the love and the pleasure will have been enough.
world hunters poet
No barrier stands between the material world of science and the sensibilities of the hunter and the poet,
passion taught-us desire
If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.
running ecosystems thumbs
I turned to the teeming small creatures that can be held between the thumb and forefinger: the little things that compose the foundation of our ecosystems, the little things, as I like to say, who run the world.
rain years historical
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.
religious progress would-be
I would say that for the sake of human progress, the best thing we could possibly do would be to diminish, to the point of eliminating, religious faiths. But certainly not eliminating the natural yearnings of our species or the asking of these great questions.
religion atheism information
In fact, nothing in science as a whole has been more firmly established by interwoven factual information, or more illuminating than the universal occurrence of biological evolution. Further, few natural processes have been more convincingly explained than evolution by the theory of natural selection, or as it has been popularly called, Darwinism.
way becoming honest
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.
ambition wings greek
Let us see how high we can fly before the sun melts the wax in our wings. About the ambitious pursuit of knowledge, alluding to Icarus of the Greek myth.
religious groups essentials
Religious beliefs evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of religions is not a weakness but their essential strength.
struggle diversity arguing
I will argue that every scrap of biological diversity is priceless, to be learned and cherished, and never to be surrendered without a struggle.
long limits evolution
To be anthropocentric is to remain unaware of the limits of human nature, the significance of biological processes underlying human behavior, and the deeper meaning of long-term genetic evolution.
nature ninety-nine species
Ninety-nine percent of all species that ever lived are now extinct.
cells ecosystems organization
Biology is a science of three dimensions. The first is the study of each species across all levels of biological organization, molecule to cell to organism to population to ecosystem. The second dimension is the diversity of all species in the biosphere. The third dimension is the history of each species in turn, comprising both its genetic evolution and the environmental change that drove the evolution. Biology, by growing in all three dimensions, is progressing toward unification and will continue to do so.