The single most important problem is our misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem!

All recognized famous inventors had capable predecessors and successors and made their improvements at a time when society was capable of using their product.

I'd rather spend my leisure time doing what some people call my work and I call my fun.

Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots.

Measles and TB evolved from diseases of our cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs, and smallpox possibly from a disease of camels. The Americas had very few native domesticated animal species from which humans could acquire such diseases.

Throughout history, adultery has had few rivals as a cause of murder and human misery. The reason we tend to resemble our mates is that many of us are looking for someone who reminds us of our parent or sibling of the opposite sex, who in turn resembles us.

We know from our recent history that English did not come to replace U.S. Indian languages merely because English sounded musical to Indians' ears. Instead, the replacement entailed English-speaking immigrants' killing most Indians by war, murder, and introduced diseases, and the surviving Indians' being pressured into adopting English, the new majority language.