For Dawkins, evolution is a battle among genes, each seeking to make more copies of itself. Bodies are merely the places where genes aggregate for a time.

Misunderstanding of probability may be the greatest of all impediments to scientific literacy.

Biological determinism is, in its essence, a theory of limits. It takes the current status of groups as a measure of where they should and must be ... We inhabit a world of human differences and predilections, but the extrapolation of these facts to theories of rigid limits is ideology.

Can I pay any higher tribute to a man [George Gaylord Simpson] than to state that his work both established a profession and sowed the seeds for its own revision? If Simpson had reached final truth, he either would have been a priest or would have chosen a dull profession. The history of life cannot be a dull profession.

All science is intelligent inference; excessive literalism is delusion, not a humble bowing to evidence.

Is uniformitarianism necessary?

We are storytelling animals, and cannot bear to acknowledge the ordinariness of our daily lives.