Scientists often talk of parsimony (as in "the simplest explanation is probably correct," also known as Occam's razor), but we should not get seduced by the apparent elegance of argument from parsimony; this line of reasoning has failed in the past at least as many times as it has succeeded.

Given the billions of neurons, this means there are as many connections in a single cubic centimeter of brain tissue as there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

Death... The moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.

We are not the ones driving the boat of our behavior, at least not nearly as much as we believe.

Imbalance of reason and emotion may explain the tenacity of religion in societies: world religions are optimized to tap into the emotional networks, and great arguments of reason amount to little against such magnetic pull.

You are more likely to believe that a statement is true if you have heard it before - whether or not it is actually true.

It is the most wondrous thing we have discovered in the universe, and it is us.