Эдвард Осборн Уилсон цитаты

„Неизменный парадокс религии состоит в том, что во многом суть ее представляется явным обманом, и все-таки религия остается движущей силой во всех обществах.“

„Важной чертой племени является то, что оно имеет двойной морально-нравственный стандарт – один вид поведения принят для внутригрупповых отношений и другой – для внегрупповых отношений.“

„Магия и тотемизм представляли собой результат непосредственной адаптации к среде и в общественной эволюции предшествовали религии как таковой.“

„Среди американских новорожденных этнические китайцы, например, более психически устойчивы, меньше тревожатся от шума и движения, лучше приспосабливаются к новым стимулам и дискомфорту и быстрее успокаиваются, чем младенцы европейской расы.“

„Нам достались эмоции времен Палеолита, средневековые социальные институты и божественные технологии.“

„Пение и танец служат для того, чтобы объединить группы, управлять эмоциями людей, подготовить их к совместным действиям.“

„Наиболее острой внутренней проблемой современного человека является проблема идентичности.“

„Полигамию, как тайную, так и явную – одобренную обычаями, практикуют преимущественно мужчины.“

„Исследования Кинси (Kinsey) и его коллег показали, что в 1940-х гг. приблизительно 10% от достигших сексуальной зрелости мужчин в Соединенных Штатах были главным образом или исключительно гомосексуалистами.“

„Точка возникновения человеческой речи находится на позднейших этапах видообразования в роде Homo.“

„Половое поведение стало мало связанным собственно с оплодотворением.“

“We are not compelled to believe in biological uniformity in order to affirm human freedom and dignity.”

“The toxic mix of religion and tribalism has become so dangerous as to justify taking seriously the alternative view, that humanism based on science is the effective antidote, the light and the way at last placed before us.”

“We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.”

“True character arises from a deeper well than religion.”

“Few will doubt that humankind has created a planet-sized problem for itself. No one wished it so, but we are the first species to become a geophysical force, altering Earth's climate, a role previously reserved for tectonics, sun flares, and glacial cycles.”

“Wonderful theory, wrong species.”

“People would rather believe than know.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species”

“There is no better high than discovery.”

“One planet, one experiment.”

“Adults forget the depths of languor into which the adolescent mind decends with ease. They are prone to undervalue the mental growth that occurs during daydreaming and aimless wandering”

“The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.”

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

“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.”

“Science and technology are what we can do; morality is what we agree we should or should not do.”

“The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a decent standard of living while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible.”

“Although the capacity to become schizophrenic may well be within all of us, there is no question that certain persons have distinctive genes predisposing them to the condition.”

“The fraction of Americans working in occupations concerned primarily with information has increased from 20 to nearly 50 percent of the work force.”

“Much of good science — and perhaps all of great science — has its roots in fantasy.”

“I interpret contemporary human social behavior to comprise hypertrophic outgrowths of the simpler features of human nature joined together into an irregular mosaic.”

“We seem to be able to be fully comfortable only when the remainder of humanity can be labeled as members versus nonmembers.”

“The mosquito is an automaton. It can afford to be nothing else.”

“The most peaceable tribes of today were often ravagers of yesteryear and will probably again produce soldiers and murderers in the future.”

“My definition of a scientist is that you can complete the following sentence: ‘he or she has shown that…”

“Because of mathematical indeterminancy and the uncertainty principle, it may be a law of nature that no nervous system is capable of acquiring enough knowledge to significantly predict the future of any other intelligent system in detail. Nor can intelligent minds gain enough self-knowledge to know their own future, capture fate, and in this sense eliminate free will.”

“The central idea of the philosophy of behaviorism, that behavior and the mind have an entirely materialist basis subject to experimental analysis, is fundamentally sound.”