Nature is not here to keep you alive. It has just as many ways to kill you as it does to sustain you. And if you cherry-pick this fact, you are left thinking that earth is some haven for life, but 96, 97 percent of all species that ever lived on earth are now extinct from the actions of the earth itself and an occasional asteroid to stir the pot.

Not everyone is going to like science as a subject.

The trend lines in research and innovation look good for places such as India and China and less good for America as we go forward. So even if you're not enchanted by the prospect of cosmic discovery, the prospect of dying poor may be what it takes to understand the role of this adventure in the future of the natural world in which we live.

Eventually, the Sun will swell to occupy the entire sky as its expansion subsumes the orbit of earth. Earth's surface temperature will rise until it matches the 3,000-degree rarified outer layers of the expanded Sun.... But not to worry. We will surely go extinct for some other reason long before this scenario unfolds.

Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.

We went to the moon using just Newton's laws of motion and gravity. Newtonian dynamics we call it. So then we find out, "Well, this works because there's certain regimes we've never tested it in." Had we done so, we would show that it didn't work: For example, at very high speeds, very high gravity, Newton's laws fail. They just fail. You need Einstein's laws of motion and gravity. Those would be his special theory of relativity and general theory of relativity. Now you invoke those and it works.

You don't need to be a scientist to know Earth's age or that life evolved. You just need be one who embraces objective truths