The Diversity of Life Quotes

“Somewhere close I knew spear-nosed bats flew through the tree crowns in search of fruit, palm vipers coiled in ambush in the roots of orchids, jaguars walked the river's edge; around them eight hundred species of trees stood, more than are native to all of North America; and a thousand species of butterflies, 6 percent of the entire world fauna, waited for the dawn.About the orchids of that place we knew very little. About flies and beetles almost nothing, fungi nothing, most kinds of organisms nothing. Five thousand kinds of bacteria might be found in a pinch of soil, and about them we knew absolutely nothing. This was wilderness in the sixteenth-century sense, as it must have formed in the minds of the Portuguese explorers, its interior still largely unexplored and filled with strange, myth-engendering plants and animals. From such a place the pious naturalist would send long respectful letters to royal patrons about the wonders of the new world as testament to the glory of God. And I thought: there is still time to see this land in such a manner.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life

“[A] new idea will, like mother earth, take some serious hits. If good it will survive, probably in modified form. If bad it will die, usually at the time of death or retirement of the last original proponent.
As Paul Samuelson once said of the science of economics: funeral by funeral, theory advances.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life

“When a big, new, persuasive idea is proposed, an army of critics soon gathers and tries to tear it down. Such a reaction is unavoidable because, aggressive yet abiding by the rules of civil discourse, this is simply how scientists work.
It is further true that, faced with adversity, proponents will harden their resolve and struggle to make the case more convincing. Being human, most scientists conform to the psychological Principle of Certainty, which says that when there is evidence both for and against a belief, the result is not a lessening but a heightening of conviction on both sides.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life

“Biodiversity [...] is the key to the maintenance of the world as we know it.
Life in a local site struck down by a passing storm springs back quickly because enough diversity still exists. Opportunistic species evolved for just such an occasion rush in to fill the spaces. They entrain the succession that circles back to something resembling the original state of the environment.
This is the assembly of life that took a billion years to evolve. It has eaten the storms —folded them into its genes — and created the world that created us. It holds the world steady.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life

“The unknown and prodigious are drugs to the scientific imagination, stirring insatiable hunger with a single taste.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life

“Genius is the summed production of the many with the names of the few attached for easy recall, unfairly so to other scientists.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life

“The best of science doesn't consist of mathematical models and experiments, as textbooks make it seem. Those come later. It springs fresh from a more primitive mode of thought, wherein the hunter's mind weaves ideas from old facts and fresh metaphors and the scrambled crazy images of things recently seen.
To move forward is to concoct new patterns of thought, which in turn dictate the design of the models and experiments.
Easy to say, difficult to achieve.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life

“The forest at night is an experience in sensory deprivation most of the time, black and silent as the midnight zone of a cave.
Life is out there in expected abundance. The jungle teems, but in a manner mostly beyond the reach of the human senses. Ninety-nine percent of the animals find their way by chemical trails laid over the surface, puffs of odor released into the air or water, and scents diffused out of little hidden glands and into the air downwind.
Animals are masters of this chemical channel, where we are idiots. But we are geniuses of the audiovisual channel, equaled in this modality only by a few odd groups (whales, monkeys, birds). So we wait for the dawn, while they wait for the fall of darkness; and because sight and sound are the evolutionary prerequisites of intelligence, we alone have come to reflect on such matters as Amazon nights and sensory modalities.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life

“Who are we to destroy the planet's Creation? Each species around us is a masterpiece of evolution, exquisitely adapted to its environment. Species existing today are thousands to millions of years old. Their genes, having been tested by adversity over countless generations, engineer a staggeringly complex mix of biochemical devices that promote the survival and reproduction of the organisms carrying them.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life