It's probably even the case that if you stoked up some Buddhist monks with tons of testosterone, they'd become wildly competitive as to who can do the most acts of random kindness.

Depression is not generalized pessimism, but pessimism specific to the effects of one's own skilled action.

Almost always, genes are about potentials and vulnerabilities rather than about determinism.

What happened during the minutes before? That's the realm of sensory stimuli of the nervous system.

Until you appreciate something crucial - It is incredibly easy to manipulate us as to who counts as an Us, who as a Them.

The regulation of genes is often more interesting than the genes themselves, and it's the environment that regulates genes.

...I might continue to believe that there is no god even if it were proved that there is. A religious friend of mine once remarked that the concept of god is useful, because you can berate god during the bad times. But it is clear to me that I don't need to believe there is a god in order to berate him.