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" Wilson, whose latest book is The Superorganism, was born in Birmingham, Alabama and earned a master&amp;#039;s in biology from the University of Alabama.  Well, it&amp;#039;s definitely the egg.  Now, if I were a good philosopher, I&amp;#039;d say that&amp;#039;s an unanswerable question. But I&amp;#039;m a biologist, and I say it&amp;#039;s answerable. It&amp;#039;s the egg. The egg that first obtained the mutation that&amp;#039;s manifested in the proto-chicken. That produces the next mutated egg that produces the next stage of the proto-chicken.  An ant colony is far more intelligent than an ant.   Ants are the dominant insects. There are fourteen thousand known kinds. Each one is unique in its anatomy, its social behavior, its history. No matter where I go -- except possibly Antarctica or the high Arctic, and I don&amp;#039;t go there because there are no ants there -- no matter how different the human culture, no matter how different the natural environment, there are the ants.   You have an ant problem? Then we start with a modest but nonetheless telling example of the importance of scientific information. If the ants are the small black species that appear in people&amp;#039;s kitchens in later winter and early spring, sometimes in great numbers, you have no problem. Because these are most likely European pavement ants that nest outdoors and are attracted to the interior of your house in searches for food. The best way to handle European pavement ants is to find out how they&amp;#039;re getting in the house. It&amp;#039;s usually one crack, or one inconspicuous hole. And then just put a little boric acid on top of it. It repels them.   One by one, the great questions of philosophy, including &amp;quot;Who are we?&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Where did we come from?&amp;quot; are being answered to different degrees of solidity. So gradually, science is simply taking over the big questions created by philosophy. Philosophy consists largely of the history of failed models of the brain.  You are not a real scientist until you make a discovery. And if you make a great discovery, you&amp;#039;re a great scientist. You can be a complete jerk and go the rest of your life just saying dumb things and never finding anything again, but you&amp;#039;re still a great scientist.  If someone could actually prove scientifically that there is such a thing as a supernatural force, it would be one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science. So the notion that somehow scientists are resisting it is ludicrous.  The intelligent-design folks say, &amp;quot;You haven&amp;#039;t explained everything.&amp;quot; What they don&amp;#039;t appreciate is that that&amp;#039;s what biologists do for a living. And, one by one, the things that can&amp;#039;t be explained are explained.   Between scientists, you can have high competitiveness and jealousy and petty nit-picking, because we are human. But once something is nailed, the person who did it usually gets the credit, and we move on.   Freud&amp;#039;s place in history was to simply point out that a lot goes on in the brain that is not conscious thought. But then he should have gone back to the laboratory. Because what he did then was to dream up a whole series of scenarios about the subconscious, most of which turned out to be wrong.   Anyone who wants to know the history of American philosophical thought for the last half century should go through the pages of The New York Review of Books. See what the fashions were.  What makes humanity is not reason. Our emotions are what make us human.   Religion is a manifestation of deep emotion that will out, one way or the other. Either in an atheistic political ideology or an excessive fierceness in being secular. Or the Red Sox. In other words, we constantly seek a tribe that we feel is innately superior and has the great truths, and we want to identify with them. We shouldn&amp;#039;t deny that.  I&amp;#039;m a very patriotic American. Pure reason would say, &amp;quot;Well, America is your tribe, and there are certain things you grew up with, were enculturated with, and that&amp;#039;s why you&amp;#039;re behaving the way you are.&amp;quot; And then I say that&amp;#039;s right. I repeat, I&amp;#039;m a very patriotic American. I want America to be the best. I want America to prevail -- not conquer but prevail. I want this country to be foremost in its qualities and its virtues and its accomplishments. And also, to stay together as a closely united country. And I know why I think that way. It&amp;#039;s five million years of evolution. My brain is programmed to think that way. But that doesn&amp;#039;t lessen my patriotism.  Let&amp;#039;s be sensible, guys. We&amp;#039;re not gonna tear off on Mars, and we&amp;#039;re not gonna send off colonists to the nearest star system. We&amp;#039;re gonna live here. This is what our bodies and our minds are adapted to.   I&amp;#039;ll catch Wall-E when it goes on cable.  We have to get an entirely new mentality. Getting set for a long haul into the future. In which we grow. Not in numbers -- we&amp;#039;ll probably shrink in numbers -- but we grow. In our understanding, in our happiness, in our harmony. Because we realize that there&amp;#039;s no other way to survive as a species.  I think we&amp;#039;re in the early stages of it now. Don&amp;#039;t you?   I think we will make it. Because one quality people have -- certainly Americans have it -- is that they can adapt when they see necessity staring them in the face. What to avoid is what someone once called the definition of hell: truth realized too late.  If you have ants in your house, be kind to them. Interviewed by Tom Junod, August 5, 2008 Published in the January 2009 issue. RELATED STORIES:  THE PERFORMANCE MATRIX: Scientific Proof that E.O. Wilson Might Be the Greatest Man Alive  WHAT I&amp;#039;VE LEARNED: More Wisdom and Damn Good Advice from Hundreds of Headliners!   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/interviews/a5375/eo-wilson-quotes-0109/>