We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realise that we are apes. Our common ancestor with the chimpanzees and gorillas is much more recent than their common ancestor with the Asian apes - the gibbons and orangutans. There is no natural category that includes chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans but excludes humans.

My computer is a very complex gadget and it was designed by many designers, so why must the universe have only a single designer and not many designers?

If God wanted to create life and create humans, it would be slightly odd that he should choose the extraordinarily roundabout way of waiting for 10 billion years before life got started and then waiting for another 4 billion years until you got human beings capable of worshipping and sinning and all the other things religious people are interested in.

I sympathize with politicians who have to watch every syllable they utter for fear it will be misused by somebody with an agenda.

The thing that defines a species is that all members have the same addressing system for their DNA.

Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice their incompatibility, and let them draw their own conclusions about the consequences of that incompatibility. As for whether they are ‘valid,’ let them make up their own minds when they are old enough to do so.

But, however many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead, or rather not alive.