Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong.
Interpretation
Some confusing ideas may stem from incorrect assumptions rather than deep or complex truths.
E. O. Wilson's quote suggests that the reasons we sometimes find certain concepts difficult to understand may not be due to their complexity or depth, but rather because they are based on false premises. This highlights the importance of critically assessing the validity of our ideas and beliefs, and recognizing that misunderstanding can arise from flawed reasoning rather than mere sophistication.
In practice
In a lecture on critical thinking, one might use this quote to illustrate the dangers of accepting flawed ideas.
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.
We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener.
The man who spends his time choosing one resort after another in a hunt for peace and quiet will in every place he visits find something to prevent him from relaxing.
It seems to me that every phenomenon, every fact, itself is the really interesting object. Whoever explains it, or connects it with other events, usually only amuses himself or makes sport of us, as, for instance, the naturalist or historian. But a single action or event is interesting, not because it is explainable, but because it is true.
Iβm not clear enough in the head to feel anything but varieties of dull anger and arrows of sadness.
I'm a private intellectual, not a public one.
Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss
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