I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.

While our behavior is still significantly controlled by our genetic inheritance, we have, through our brains, a much richer opportunity to blaze new behavioral and cultural pathways on short timescales.

You mean am I for it or against it? You think this is a key question I'm going to be asked on Vega, and you want to make sure I give the right answer? Okay. Overpopulation is why I'm in favor of homosexuality and a celibate clergy. A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

All colours are arbitrary.

If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?

We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the world.

I think the discomfort that some people feel in going to the monkey cages at the zoo is a warning sign.