American political opportunities are loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.

Even if there were no actual evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory, we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.

Faith is not the opposite of reason.

Blindness to suffering is an inherent consequence of natural selection. Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent.

Explaining is a difficult art. You can explain something so that your reader understands the words; and you can explain something so that the reader feels it in the marrow of his bones. To do the latter, it sometimes isn't enough to lay the evidence before the reader in a dispassionate way. You have to become an advocate and use the tricks of the advocate's trade.

How any government could promote the Vardy academies in the North-East of England is absolutely beyond me. Tony Blair defends them on grounds of diversity, but it should be unthinkable in the 21st century to have a school whose head of science believes the world is less than 10,000 years old.

By dislaiming the idea of a next life, we can take more excitement in this one!