People sometimes try to score debating points by saying, Evolution is only a theory. That is correct, but it's important to understand what that means. It is also only a theory that the world goes round the Sun - it's just a theory for which there is an immense amount of evidence. There are many scientific theories that are in doubt. Even within evolution, there is some room for controversy. But that we are cousins of apes and jackals and starfish, let's say, that is a fact in the ordinary sense of the word.

Science is the disinterested search for the objective truth about the material world.

If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope to eventually understand it and embrace it within the natural. As ever when we unweave a rainbow, it will not become less wonderful.

There may be some deep questions about the cosmos that are forever beyond science. The mistake is to think they are therefore not beyond religion too.

Commonsense lets us down, because commonsense evolved in a world where nothing moves very fast, and nothing is very small or very large; the mundane world of the familiar.

[Jay] Gould sets up an artificial wall between the two worldviews that doesn't exist in my life.

Any belief in miracles is flat contradictory not just to the facts of science but to the spirit of science.