In college, in the early 1950s, I began to learn a little about how science works, the secrets of its great success, how rigorous the standards of evidence must be if we are really to know something is true, how many false starts and dead ends have plagued human thinking, how our biases can colour our interpretation of evidence, and how often belief systems widely held and supported by the political, religious and academic hierarchies turn out to be not just slightly in error, but grotesquely wrong.

I don't want to believe. I want to know.

Our ancestors lived out of doors. They were as familiar with the night sky as most of us are with our favorite television programs.

We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.

It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.

If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why's he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He's not good at design, he's not good at execution. He'd be out of business, if there was any competition.