Scientists learn about the world in three ways: They analyze statistical patterns in the data, they do experiments, and they learn from the data and ideas of other scientists. The recent studies show that children also learn in these ways.

I think, at the end of the century we'll have a generation of parents and a generation of children who won't have had the deep satisfactions of being parents and being children in the way that they might have and are going to spend a lot of time fretting and worrying and being hovered over for nothing. The question isn't so much "What will happen in the long run?" but "What's happening to people's lives right now?"

We fear death so profoundly, not because it means the end of our body, but because it means the end of our consciousness - better to be a spirit in Heaven than a zombie on Earth.

I'm culturally Jewish but, like most scientists, an atheist: I don't believe there's a God or supernatural world. Buddhism offers guidance on what to do in a world without God: It opines that truly being present in the world‚ experiencing and hanging out with your loved ones, provides all the significance you could want.

Owning our past allows us to own our future.

Becoming an adult means leaving the world of your parents and starting to make your way toward the future that you will share with your peers.

From an evolutionary perspective children are, literally, designed to learn. Childhood is a special period of protected immaturity. It gives the young breathing time to master the things they will need to know in order to survive as adults.