We don't need to clear the 4 to 6 percent of the Earth's surface remaining in tropical rain forests, with most of the animal and plant species living there.

The students of biodiversity, the ones we most need in science today, have an enormous task ahead of molecular biology and the medical scientists. Studying model species is a great idea, but we need to combine that with biodiversity studies and have those properly supported because of the contribution they can make to conservation biology, to agrobiology, to the attainment of a sustainable world.

America in particular imposes an horrendous burden on the world. We have this wonderful standard of living but it comes at enormous cost.

We ought to recognize that religious strife is not the consequence of differences among people. It's about conflicts between creation stories.

People would rather believe than know.

Consider the nematode roundworm, the most abundant of all animals. Four out of five animals on Earth are nematode worms — if all solid materials except nematode worms were to be eliminated, you could still see the ghostly outline of most of it in nematode worms.

I think history has shown that the worst way to [try to] bring people over and actually change public opinion is by insult and applied degradation of them.