E. O. Wilson

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

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.

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.

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.

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

For me, the peculiar qualities of faith are a logical outcome of this level of biological organization.

By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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

If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.

Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.

Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice. Science for its part will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition.

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.

When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.