We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. ... This is exactly what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object's sole reason for living.

Evolution may explain some features of the moral law, but it can't explain why it should have any real significance.

To me, the right approach is to say we are profoundly ignorant of these matters. We need to work on them. But to suddenly say the answer is God - it's that that seems to me to close off the discussion.

I think more than 20 percent of Nobel Prizes have been won by Jews.

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

Humans have more moral responsibility perhaps, because they are capable of reasoning.

Gould carried the art of bending over backward to positively supine lengths. Why shouldn't we comment on God, as scientists? ... A universe with a creative superintendent would be a very different kind of universe from one without. Why is that not a scientific matter?