There is another kind of altruism that seems to go beyond that, a kind of super-altruism, which humans appear to have. And I think that does need a Darwinian explanation.

Creationists and Holocaust deniers are both very similar - both are denying what is a perfectly manifest fact. In the case of Holocaust deniers it's more recent history, but in both cases the evidence - in favour of the Holocaust and evolution - is simply overwhelming. That doesn't mean they are morally or politically equivalent. But they are equivalent in denying history.

The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.

I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden

If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.

There is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over.

It's known that stress gives rise to disease. It's also known that many diseases, especially stress-related diseases, can be cured by placebos - pills that have no medicinal effect, but people think they do, and so they do.