Look in the mirror, and don't be tempted to equate transient domination with either intrinsic superiority or prospects for extended survival.

In their recently aborted struggle to inject Genesis literalism into science classrooms, fundamentalist groups followed their usual opportunistic strategy of arguing two contradictory sides of a question when a supposed rhetorical advantage could be extracted from each.

Taxonomy (the science of classification) is often undervalued as a glorified form of filing-with each species in its folder, like a stamp in its prescribed place in an album; but taxonomy is a fundamental and dynamic science, dedicated to exploring the causes of relationships and similarities among organisms. Classifications are theories about the basis of natural order, not dull catalogues compiled only to avoid chaos.

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

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.

Charles Darwin viewed the fossil record more as an embarrassment than as an aid to his theory.

The history of life is a tale of decimation and later stabilization of few surviving anatomies, not a story of steady expansion and progress.