The alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to think at all.

It is a truism to say that a good experiment is precisely that which spares us the exertion of thinking: the better it is, the less we have to worry about its interpretation, about what it really means.

French is not a language that lends itself naturally to the opaque and ponderous idiom of nature-philosophy, and Teilhard has according resorted to the use of that tipsy, euphoristic prose-poetry which is one of the more tiresome manifestations of the French spirit.

I do not propose to criticize the fatuous argument I have just outlined; here, to expound is to expose.

Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth.

Ask a scientist what he conceives the scientific method to be and he will adopt an expression that is at once solemn and shifty-eyed: solemn, because he feels he ought to declare an opinion; shifty-eyed, because he is wondering how to conceal the fact that he has no opinion to declare.

To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind.