Who will speak for Planet Earth?

Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? ... No other human institution comes close.

When permitted to listen to alternative opinions and engage in substantive debate, people have been known to change their minds. It can happen.

The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no in the endeavor of science. We do not know in advance who will discover fundamental insights.

Each of us is a tiny being, permitted to ride on the outermost skin of one of the smaller planets for a few dozen trips around the local star.

We are the children equally of the Sky and the Earth.

The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.