But investment in space stimulates society, it stimulates it economically, it stimulates it intellectually, and it gives us all passion.

How did we let an ideological resistance to inquiry become such a prominent part of our society?

Apparently there is redundancy in memory: You store the same memory in different parts of your brain for accessing at different speeds. That speed would depend on the frequency of use and the importance of the knowledge.

For me, the meaning of life is pretty clear: Living things strive to pass their genes into the future.

There are just two people entitled to refer to themselves as "we"; one is the editor and the other is the fellow with a tapeworm.

The US Navy has several people on every ship that can navigate by the stars. They don't fool with that.

I'll admit that the discovery of evolution is humbling, but it is also empowering. It transforms our relationship to the life around us. Instead of being outsiders watching the natural world go by, we are insiders. We are part of the process; we are the exquisite result of billions of years of natural research and development.