The other way is the multiverse way. That says that maybe the universe we are in is one of a very large number of universes. The vast majority will not contain life because they have the wrong gravitational constant or the wrong this constant or that constant. But as the number of universes climbs, the odds mount that a tiny minority of universes will have the right fine-tuning.

Granted, we may try to help our own family members because they share our DNA. Or help someone else in expectation that they will help us later. But when you look at what we admire as the most generous manifestations of altruism, they are not based on kin selection or reciprocity. An extreme example might be Oskar Schindler risking his life to save more than a thousand Jews from the gas chambers. That's the opposite of saving his genes.

[Invading Iraq] will unite the entire Arab world against the West.

[Alternative medicine is defined as] that set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested or consistently fail tests.

Atheism is not a religion. Abstinence is not a sex position.

I have never quite understood - and this is no doubt my failing - I never quite understood why you would read fiction to understand the human condition.

In Britain you don't usually learn about evolution until you are about 15. I should have thought that you should start at about 8. But I could be wrong about that.