The pathways that have led to our evolution are quirky, improbable, unrepeatable and utterly unpredictable.

Life is short, and potential studies infinite. We have a much better chance of accomplishing something significant when we follow our passionate interests and work in areas of deepest personal meaning.

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.

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.

If we are still here to witness the destruction of our planet some five billion years or more hence, then we will have achieved something so unprecedented in the history of life that we should be willing to sing our swansong with joy - Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

If genius has any common denominator, I would propose breadth of interest and the ability to construct fruitful analogies between fields.

We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction.