Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool.

We explore because we are human and we want to know. I hope that Pluto will help us on that journey.

Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.

The media need superheroes in science just as in every sphere of life, but there is really a continuous range of abilities with no clear dividing line.

I think [contacting an alien civilization] would be a disaster. The extraterrestrials would probably be far in advance of us. The history of advanced races meeting more primitive people on this planet is not very happy, and they were the same species. I think we should keep our heads low.

It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.

A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls... saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?