There are few genuine conservatives within the U.S. political system, and it is a sign of the intellectual corruption of the age that the honorable term 'conservatism' can be appropriated to disguise the advocacy of a powerful, lawless, aggressive and violent state, a welfare state for the rich dedicated to a lunatic form of Keynesian economic intervention that enhances state and private power while mortgaging the country's future.

The only debatable issue, it seems to me, is whether it is more ridiculous to turn to experts in social theory for general well-confirmed propositions, or to the specialists in the great religions and philosophical systems for insights into fundamental human values.

Small changes can magnifiy. The possibility of interpersonal communication has increased substantially with contemporary technology. But as compared with the major changes, which were long ago, these are not huge.

It's perfectly obvious that there is some genetic factor that distinguishes humans from other animals and that it is language-specific. The theory of that genetic component, whatever it turns out to be, is what is called universal grammar.

In fact, it's pretty dramatic when you get to 1975, very revealing, the [Vietnam] war ends. Everybody had to write something about the war, what it meant. You also had polls of public opinion, and they're dramatically different.

Physics and those parts of other fields that grow out of physics - chemistry, the structure of big molecules - in those domains, there is a lot of progress. In many other domains, there is very little progress in developing real scientific understanding.

A number of analysts have observed that although bin Laden was finally killed, he won some major successes in his war against the U.S.