But once the ants and termites jumped the high barrier that prevents the vast variety of evolving animal groups from becoming fully social, they dominated the world.

By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified. Today the greatest divide within humanity is not between races, or religions, or even, as is widely believed, between the literate and illiterate. It is the chasm that separates scientific from prescientific cultures.

I tend to believe that religious dogma is a consequence of evolution.

Only in the last moment in history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world.

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.

Far more important throughout the rest of science is the ability to form concepts, during which the researcher conjures images and processes by intuition.

In the attempt to make scientific discoveries, every problem is an opportunity — and the more difficult the problem, the greater will be the importance of its solution.