No species ... possesses a purpose beyond the imperatives created by genetic history ... The human mind is a device for survival and reproduction, and reason is just one of its various techniques.

There can be no purpose more enspiriting than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us.

The cost of scientific advance is the humbling recognition that reality was not constructed to be easily grasped by the human mind. This is the cardinal tenet of scientific understanding. Our species and its ways of thinking are a product of evolution, not the purpose of evolution.

The ant world is a tumult, a noisy world of pheromones being passed back and forth.

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

To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong.

No species ... possesses a purpose beyond the imperatives created by genetic history ... The human mind is a device for survival and reproduction, and reason is just one of its various techniques.