The Platonists and their Christian successors held the peculiar notion that the Earth was tainted and somehow nasty, while the heavens were perfect and divine. The fundamental idea that the Earth is a planet, that we are citizens of the Universe, was rejected and forgotten.

Humans are very good at dreaming, although you'd never know it from your television.

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 have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose.

We humans look rather different from a tree. Without a doubt we perceive the world differently than a tree does. But down deep, at the molecular heart of life, the trees and we are essentially identical.

Science is merely an extremely powerful method of winnowing what's true from what feels good.

Who will speak for Planet Earth?