E. O. Wilson Ems Quotations

The vast majority of species that are vanishing, we haven't even discovered yet. How can you possibly put them back in nature if the ecosystem is gone?

I turned to the teeming small creatures that can be held between the thumb and forefinger: the little things that compose the foundation of our ecosystems, the little things, as I like to say, who run the world.

We don't know nearly enough about the complexities of Nature. If we think we can eliminate natural ecosystems and substitute prosthetic devices, i.e. clean air or water with fusion energy - we are kidding ourselves.

While ants exist in just the right numbers for the rest of the living world, humans have become too numerous. If we were to vanish today, the land environment would return to the fertile balance that existed before the human population explosion. Only a dozen or so species, among which are the crab louse and a mite that lives in the oil glands of our foreheads, depend on us entirely. But if ants were to disappear, tens of thousands of other plants and animal species would perish also, simplifying and weakening land ecosystems almost everywhere.

Biology is a science of three dimensions. The first is the study of each species across all levels of biological organization, molecule to cell to organism to population to ecosystem. The second dimension is the diversity of all species in the biosphere. The third dimension is the history of each species in turn, comprising both its genetic evolution and the environmental change that drove the evolution. Biology, by growing in all three dimensions, is progressing toward unification and will continue to do so.

In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.

If enough species are extinguished, will the ecosystems collapse, and will the extinction of most other species follow soon afterward? The only answer anyone can give is: possibly. By the time we find out, however, it might be too late. One planet, one experiment.

Each of these [bacterial] species are masterpieces of evolution. Each has persisted for thousands to millions of years. Each is exquisitely adapted to the environment in which it lives, interlocked with other species to form ecosystems upon which our own lives depend in ways we have not begun even to imagine.

Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands. ... Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects.

Biological diversity is the key to the maintenance of the world as we know it... Eliminate one species, and another increases to take its place. Eliminate a great many species, and the local ecosystem starts to decay.

Untended property becomes fair game for people out for fun or plunder and even for people who ordinarily would not dream of doing such things and who probably consider themselves law- abiding,

They have a lot of problems with people partying back there. I just figured someone set fire to the place.

I do not believe we will be able to 'cap' very well. It seems like a very difficult challenge to put a hard and fast number on, though it makes sense.

He probably has the best hands catching the ball on this team. He is a veteran guy that players look up to and seems to produce week in, week out.

We consider it the only remaining tourist-railroad hotel in the region. It seems imminent to me that the council wants to see a resolution.

Today our direction is clear: centralizing systems to reap advantages from our size.

The energy thing is what's giving us the biggest problems now. It's killing us. What good is a farm bill in the future if we can't survive now?

It seems like every time we come up with something good to raise money, everybody all over the county starts doing something similar.

I've had several people in the last two days come over and identify themselves as Amtrak riders and the fact that Amtrak's not running, that they would have to catch the bus.

Customers say they've found real problems during the process, and it's better to find them during an audit process than later.

It makes too much sense for our cities to market themselves as one to the rest of the country. Think of how the Carolina Panthers first began marketing themselves. They weren't the Charlotte Panthers. Now they draw from the whole state and South Carolina.

Most of the problems come from people who don't live in these areas.