The paradox is that, by children taking shortcuts through computer games, through fantasies, through movies that load on all the emotional stimulation of encountering life in a stylized way - all of this is the equivalent of mainlining of paleolithic emotions, emotions about combat, about personal success, about overcoming monsters, about making powerful friendships, about winning wars and entering new territory.

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.

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

The beginning of wisdom, as the Chinese say, is calling things by their right names.

In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.

Let us see how high we can fly before the sun melts the wax in our wings.

We have to create a sustainable environment, worldwide, and we're not doing it. The best thing we can do with the rest of this century is aggressively acquire - and put aside - the richest natural reserves that we can, and then do our best to manage the needs and desires of the 11 billion people we expect to have by the end of the century. This is where biology is headed. For that reason, the sooner we get on with mapping biodiversity on Earth, the better off biology will be - not to mention the whole subject of saving it before we carelessly throw it away.