I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.

There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality.

Religious people split into three main groups when faced with science. I shall label them the "know-nothings", the "know-alls", and the "no-contests."

People who criticize The Selfish Gene like that often haven't read it. The selfish gene accounts for altruism toward kin and individuals who might be in a position to reciprocate your altruism.

If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the Intelligent Designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation. To do so would be to shoot yourself in the foot. You cannot have it both ways. Either ID belongs in the science classroom, in which case it must submit to the discipline required of a scientific hypothesis. Or it does not, in which case, get it out of the science classroom and send it back to church, where it belongs.

I do think imagination is enormously valuable, and that children should be encouraged in their imagination. That's very true.

The universe doesn't owe you a sense of hope