If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.

'Take offense at the drop of a hat' is the unwritten eleventh commandment.

Religions do make claims about the universe--the same kinds of claims that scientists make, except they're usually false.

Science is wonderful, science is important, and so are children, so are young people, and so what could be better than to write a science book for young people?

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.

It is possible to enjoy the Mozart concerto without being able to play the clarinet. In fact, you can learn to be an expert connoisseur of music without being able to play a note on any instrument. Of course, music would come to a halt if nobody ever learned to play it. But if everybody grew up thinking that music was synonymous with playing it, think how relatively impoverished many lives would be. Couldn't we learn to think of science in the same way?

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.