It is ironic that the scientific facts throw Darwin out, but leave William Paley, a figure of fun to the scientific world for more than a century, still in the tournament with a chance of being the ultimate winner... Indeed, such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.

Outstanding examples of genius - a Mozart, a Shakespeare, or a Carl Friedrich Gauss - are markers on the path along which our species appears destined to tread.

Words are like harpoons. Once they go in, they are very hard to pull out.

It is no more likely that our world has evolved out of chaos than that a hurricane, blowing through a junk yard, should create a Boeing.

Life cannot have had a random beginning. ... The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10 to the 40,000 power, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.

There is a coherent plan to the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.

Once I had learnt my twelve times table (at the age of three) it was downhill all the way.