We think of our eyes as video cameras and our brains as blank tapes to be filled with sensory inputs.

Flawed as they may be, science and the secular Enlightenment values expressed in Western democracies are our best hope for survival.

Science is not the affirmation of a set of beliefs but a process of inquiry aimed at building a testable body of knowledge constantly open to rejection or confirmation. In science, knowledge is fluid and certainty fleeting. That is at the heart of its limitations. It is also its greatest strength.

To be a fully functioning moral agent, one cannot passively accept moral principles handed down by fiat. Moral principles require moral reasoning.

Science is not a thing. It's a verb. It's a way of thinking about things. It's a way of looking for natural explanations for all phenomena.

I just witnessed an event so mysterious that it shook my skepticism.

The reason is that in a group, individual errors on either side of the true figure cancel each other out.