For solving a surprisingly large and varied number of problems, crowds are smarter than individuals.

It is sad that while science moves ahead in exciting new areas of research, fine-tuning our knowledge of how life originated and evolved, creationists remain mired in medieval debates about angels on the head of a pin and animals in the belly of an Ark.

We're all talking about the same thing, whether it's religious people or New Age spiritual people or Buddhists or scientists. We're all talking about having a sense of awe and wonder at something grander than ourselves.

In the long run, it is better to understand the way the world really is rather than how we would like it to be.

But the power of science lies in open publication, which, with the rise of the Internet, is no longer constrained by the price of paper.

Skepticism is not a position; skepticism is an approach to claims, in the same way that science is not a subject but a method.

The question itself [of UFOs] I think is legitimate. It's interesting, it's fascinating. It's mythic in scale and one of the grand questions. It's like the God question or, you know, the meaning-of-life question. It's one of those, on that scale. So you'd have to be made of wood not to be interested and, you know, have they come here? Are they up there?