It stands to reason that we love chocolate cake because it is sweet. Guys go for girls like this because they are sexy. We adore babies because they're so cute. And, of course, we are amused by jokes because they are funny. This is all backwards. It is. And Darwin shows us why.

The haven all memes depend on reaching is the human mind, but a human mind is itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order to make it a better habitat for memes.

There is a time for politeness and there is a time when you are obliged to be rude.

A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.

Words have a genealogy and it's easier to trace the evolution of a single word than the evolution of a language.

If the concept of consciousness were to fall to science, what would happen to our sense of moral agency and free will? If conscious experience were reduced somehow to mere matter in motion, what would happen to our appreciation of love and pain and dreams and joy? If conscious human beings were just animated material objects, how could anything we do to them be right or wrong?

Churches have given us great treasures such as music and architecture. Whether that pays for the harm they have done is another matter.