Tab Hunter
American actor and singer (1931-2018)
E. O. Wilson
American biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
Edward Osborne Wilson was an American biologist, naturalist, ecologist, and entomologist known for developing the field of sociobiology.
Born in Alabama, Wilson found an early interest in nature and frequented the outdoors.
Table of Contents
About the E. O. Wilson
Edward Osborne Wilson was an American biologist, naturalist, ecologist, and entomologist known for developing the field of sociobiology.
Born in Alabama, Wilson found an early interest in nature and frequented the outdoors. At age seven, he was partially blinded in a fishing accident; due to his reduced sight, Wilson resolved to study entomology. After graduating from the University of Alabama, Wilson transferred to complete his dissertation at Harvard University, where he distinguished himself in multiple fields. In 1956, he co-authored a paper defining the theory of character displacement. In 1967, he developed the theory of island biogeography with Robert MacArthur.
Wilson was the Pellegrino University Research Professor Emeritus in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, a lecturer at Duke University, and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. The Royal Swedish Academy awarded Wilson the Crafoord Prize. He was a humanist laureate of the International Academy of Humanism. He was a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfictionand a New York Times bestselling author for The Social Conquest of Earth, Letters to a Young Scientist, and The Meaning of Human Existence.
Wilson’s work received both praise and criticism during his lifetime. His book Sociobiology was a particular flashpoint for controversy, and drew criticism from the Sociobiology Study Group. Wilson’s interpretation of the theory of evolution resulted in a widely reported dispute with Richard Dawkins. Examinations of his letters after his death revealed that he had supported the psychologist J. Philippe Rushton, whose work on race and intelligence is widely regarded by the scientific community as deeply flawed and racist.
30 Quotes by E. O. Wilson
- 1.
Old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 2.
If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 3.
There is no better high than discovery.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 4.
Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 5.
To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 6.
Even as empiricism is winning the mind, transcendentalism continues to win the heart.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 7.
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?
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 8.
Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 9.
If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 10.
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 11.
Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice. Science for its part will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 12.
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.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 13.
Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 14.
The essence of humanity’s spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. Is there a way to erase the dilemma, to resolve the contradictions between the transcendentalist and the empiricist world views?
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 15.
If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 16.
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.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 17.
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.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 18.
We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 19.
Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 20.
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. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 21.
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.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 22.
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.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 23.
True character arises from a deeper well than religion.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 24.
Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 25.
It’s like having astronomy without knowing where the stars are.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 26.
When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 27.
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 28.
The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 29.
By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)
- 30.
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.
E. O. WilsonAmerican biologist, naturalist, and writer (1929-2021)