We have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life's continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not be suited to it, but here we are.

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

Mary Anning [is] probably the most important unsung (or inadequately sung) collecting force in the history of paleontology.

Change is more often a rapid transition between two stable states than a continuous transformation at slow and steady rates. . . .Change occurs in large leaps following a slow accumulation of stress that a system resists until it reaches the breaking point. Heat water, and it eventually boils. Oppress the workers more and more and bring on the revolution.

Precise adaptation, with each part finely honed to perform a definite function in an optimal way, can only lead to blind alleys, dead ends, and extinction.

Always be suspicious of conclusions that reinforce uncritical hope and follow comforting traditions of Western thought.

But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions.