I've got no problem with anybody's religion. But if you go claiming the Earth is only 10,000 years old, that's just wrong.

I've always loved airplanes and flight. The space program was really important to me as a kid. I still have a photo of Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon in my living room.

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

Bicycling is a big part of the future. It has to be. There's something wrong with a society that drives a car to work out in a gym.

Burning carbon-based substances like oil, gas, and especially coal, produces billions of tons of extra carbon dioxide each year. Methane gas from cows and pigs and other animals on our large farms ends up in the atmosphere as well, trapping more of the sun's energy as heat.

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

I often reflect on what an extraordinary time (pun intended) it is to be alive here in the beginning of the twenty-first century. It took life billions of years to get to this point. It took humans thousands of years to piece together a meaningful understanding of our cosmos, our planet and ourselves. Think how fortunate we are to know this much. But think also of all that's yet to be discovered. Here's hoping the deep answers to the deep questions-from the nature of consciousness to the origin of life-will be found in not too much more time.