The search for knowledge is in our genes. It was put there by our distant ancestors who spread across the world, and it's never going to be quenched.
Interpretation
The pursuit of knowledge is an innate trait passed down through generations and is fundamental to human nature.
E. O. Wilson expresses the idea that our drive to acquire knowledge and explore the world is not just a personal ambition but a deep-seated trait embedded in our genetic makeup. This quest for understanding has been instilled in us by our ancestors, who sought to learn about their environment, and it continues to fuel humanity's journey forward, suggesting that this thirst for knowledge is both enduring and essential.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of education, one might quote this to emphasize our inherent desire to learn.
Consider the nematode roundworm, the most abundant of all animals. Four out of five animals on Earth are nematode worms β if all solid materials except nematode worms were to be eliminated, you could still see the ghostly outline of most of it in nematode worms.
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
The worst thing that will probably happen-in fact is already well underway-is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.
Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.
Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
An Armageddon is approaching at the beginning of the third millennium. But it is not the cosmic war and fiery collapse of mankind foretold in sacred scripture. It is the wreckage of the planet by an exuberantly plentiful and ingenious humanity.
An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.
No doubt science cannot admit of compromises, and can only bring out the complete truth. Hence there must be controversy, and the strife may be, and sometimes must be, sharp. But must it even then be personal? Does it help science to attack the man as well as the statement? On the contrary, has not science the noble privilege of carrying on its controversies without personal quarrels?
There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not some day be applied to phenomena of the real world.
But just as astronomy succeeded astrology, following Kepler's discovery of planetary regularities, the discoveries of these many principles in empirical explorations of intellectual processes in machines should lead to a science, eventually.
Electrical science has disclosed to us the more intimate relation existing between widely different forces and phenomena and has thus led us to a more complete comprehension of Nature and its many manifestations to our senses.
I would designate as science fiction in the best sense: they are visions and anticipations by which we seek to attain a true knowledge, but, in fact, they are only imaginations whereby we seek to draw near to the reality.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.