Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals.

I thought perhaps it should be recognized that religious people, including fundamentalists, are quite intelligent, many of them are highly educated, and they should be treated with complete respect.

There is no better high than discovery.

[Bacteria are the] dark matter of the biological world [with 4 million mostly unknown species in a ton of soil].

Common sense is merely unaided intuition, and unaided intuition is reasoning performed in the absense of instruments and the tested knowledge of science. Common sense tells us that massive satellites cannot hang suspended 36,000 kilometers above the one point on the earth's surface, but they do.

People would rather believe than know.

Religious belief itself is an adaptation that has evolved because we're hard-wired to form tribalistic religions.