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
kids able way
Every kid has a bug period, I like to say, and I just got so fascinated and I had that experience, that wonderful life of being able to go out on my own without really any supervision at all. I just lucked out that way. I was trusted as a kid.
thinking agreement people
I think that's my nature, to want to bring people together rather than to try to bombard them into agreement.
taken world levels
We don't even know what species are out there, for the most part, particularly when you get down to the microbes and very small invertebrates. They make up the mass of the organisms around us, including the soil we depend on, the soil of cornfields as well as hardwood forests. We haven't taken ecology to the point where we can even make a crude prediction of what's going to happen when we've reduced the living world down to a certain level.
law diversity language
The laws of biology are written in the language of diversity.
views years alabama
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.
simple brain use
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.
suicidal people waiting
The most dangerous of devotions, in my opinion, is the one endemic to Christianity: I was not born to be of this world. With a second life waiting, suffering can be endured--especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of the faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised.
beautiful past men
The green prehuman earth is the mystery we were chosen to solve, a guide to the birthplace of our spirit, but it is slipping away. The way back seems harder every year. If there is danger in the human trajectory, it is not so much in the survival of our own species as in the fulfillment of the ultimate irony of organic evolution: that in the instant of achieving self-understanding, through the mind of man, life has doomed its most beautiful creations. And thus humanity closes the door on its past.
passion taught-us desire
If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.
years land impact
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.
humble land heritage
Every native species, however humble in appearance...has its place in the nation's heritage. It is a masterpiece of evolution, an ancient, multifaceted entity that shares the land with us.
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.
art symphony information
In a purely technical sense, each species of higher organism-beetle, moss, and so forth, is richer in information than a Caravaggio painting, Mozart symphony, or any other great work of art.
passion expression
Search until you find a passion and go all out to excel in its expression.