Edward Osborne Wilson (born June 10, 1929), usually cited as E. O. Wilson, is an American biologist, researcher (sociobiology, biodiversity, island biogeography), theorist (consilience, biophilia), naturalist (conservationist) and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world's leading expert.
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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.
What we need is an electronic encyclopedia of life with one page for each species. On each page is given everything known about that species.
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.
Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them.
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.
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.
I had in mind a message although I hope it doesn't intrude too badly persuading Americans and especially Southerners of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.