Chemistry begins in the stars. The stars are the source of the chemical elements, which are the building blocks of matter and the core of our subject.

The challenge of elucidating living processes -- including consciousness and all its baggage which we bundle together as 'the human spirit' -- is only one example of a challenge where hard work is paying off and science does not need to accept the false explanations peddled by religions.

My aim is to argue that the universe can come into existence without intervention, and that there is no need to invoke the idea of a Supreme Being in one of its numerous manifestations.

Science is almost totally incompatible with religion.

Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation.

I regard teaching religion as purveying lies.

Someone with a fresh mind, one not conditioned by upbringing and environment, would doubtless look at science and the powerful reductionism that it inspires as overwhelmingly the better mode of understanding the world, and would doubtless scorn religion as sentimental wishful thinking. Would not that same uncluttered mind also see the attempts to reconcile science and religion by disparaging the reduction of the complex to the simple as attempts guided by muddle-headed sentiment and intellectually dishonest emotion?