World views are social constructions and they channel the search for facts. But facts are found and knowledge progresses, however fitfully.

Theory-free science makes about as much sense as value-free politics.

Natural selection is a theory of local adaptation to changing environments. It proposes no perfecting principles, no guarantee of general improvement

No rational order of divine intelligence unites species. The natural ties are genealogical along contingent pathways of history.

I emphatically do not assert the general 'truth' of this philosophy of punctuational change. Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of such a grandiose notion would border on the nonsensical.

The equation of evolution with progress represents our strongest cultural impediment to a proper understanding of this greatest biological revolution in the history of human thought.

What's important is that all human knowledge be made available to all intelligent people who want to learn it.