If you don't know anything about computers, just remember that they are machines that do exactly what you tell them but often surprise you in the result.

What Francis [Collins] was just saying about Genesis was, of course, a little private quarrel between him and his Fundamentalist colleagues. It would be unseemly for me to enter in except to suggest that he'd save himself an awful lot of trouble if he just simply ceased to give them the time of day.

Reductionism is a dirty word, and a kind of 'holistier than thou' self-righteousness has become fashionable.

God is an idea that people believe in and I spend time arguing with people that subscribe to that idea(man made idea).

It can be consoling to think your children are in heaven. You have got to understand that that doesn't make it true. Many people cannot understand that distinction.

Molecular genetics can show off some surprising relationships like, for example, the close relationship of whales to hippopotamuses, which I think nobody ever guessed until molecular data was looked at. The closest relatives of whales are hippopotamuses, even closer than any other cloven-hoofed animals.

As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.