An Armageddon is approaching at the beginning of the third millennium. But it is not the cosmic war and fiery collapse of mankind foretold in sacred scripture. It is the wreckage of the planet by an exuberantly plentiful and ingenious humanity.

The genius of human society is in fact the ease with which alliances are formed, broken, and reconstituted, always with strong emotional appeals to rules believed to be absolute.

I had in mind a message, although I hope it doesn't intrude too badly, persuading Americans, and especially Southerners, of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.

Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species

Science is not marginal. Like art, it is a universal possession of humanity, and scientific knowledge has become a vital part of our species' repertory. It comprises what we know of the material world with reasonable certainty. . . . Thanks to science and technology, access to factual information of all kinds is rising exponentially.

And pigs may fly. And we may be able to terraform and send surface populations to Mars. And Jesus may come next week anyway, so it doesn't matter one way or the other. All these crazy things run through people's minds.

The evolutionary epic is ... the best myth we will ever have.