I can't go around believing in a God that believes suffering is good for me.

So far, we have been able to study only one evolving system and we cannot wait for interstellar flight to provide us with a second. If we want to discover generalizations about evolving systems, we will have to look at artificial ones.

Scientific theories tell us what is possible; myths tell us what is desirable. Both are needed to guide proper action.

Mathematics without natural history is sterile, but natural history without mathematics is muddled.

As an evolutionary biologist, I have learned over the years that most people do not want to see themselves as lumbering robots programmed to ensure the survival of their genes. I don't think they will want to see themselves as digital computers either. To be told by someone with impeccable scientific credentials that they are nothing of the kind can only be pleasing.

Information imposes certain criteria on how it can be stored.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed for the remarkable fact of our own existence, indeed the existence of all life wherever it may turn up in the universe.