E. O. Wilson - Genetic Quotes

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Piaget, who was originally trained as a biologist, views intellectual development as an interaction of an inherited genetic program with the environment. It is no coincidence that he calls this conception "genetic epistemology," in effect the study of the hereditary unfolding of understanding.

E. O. Wilson
Genetic determinism... On its interpretation depends the entire relation between biology and the social sciences.

E. O. Wilson
The theory of population genetics and experiments on other organisms show that substantial changes can occur in the span of less than 100 generations, which for man reaches back to the time of the Roman Empire.

E. O. Wilson
The genes hold culture on a leash. The leash is very long, but inevitably values will be constrained in accordance with their effects on the human gene pool. The brain is a product of evolution. Human behavior-like the deepest capacities for emotional respone which drive and guide it-is the circuitous technique by which human genetic material has been and will be kept intact.

E. O. Wilson
We can search among the unconscious, emotion-laden learning rules for the kind of behavior most directly influenced by genetic evolution.

E. O. Wilson
No species... possesses a purpose beyond the imperatives created by genetic history.... The human mind is a device for survival and reproduction, and reason is just one of its various techniques.

E. O. Wilson
The worst thing that can happen during the 1980s is not energy depletion, economic collapse, limited nuclear war, or conquest by a totalitarian government. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired within a few generations. The one process ongoing in the 1980s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly that our descendents are least likely to forgive us.

E. O. Wilson