Mass extinctions may not threaten distant futures, but they are decidedly unpleasant for species caught up in the throes of their power.

I like to summarize what I regard as the pedestal-smashing messages of Darwin's revolution in the following statement, which might be chanted several times a day, like a Hare Krishna mantra, to encourage penetration into the soul: Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought.

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.

If there is any consistent enemy of science, it is not religion, but irrationalism.

The fundamentalists, by 'knowing' the answers before they start, and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science - or any honest intellectual inquiry.

Our searches for numerical order lead as often to terminal nuttiness as to profound insight.

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