Evolutionary psychologists seem to want to unmask our noblest motives as ultimately self-interested - to show that our love for children, compassion for the unfortunate and sense of justice are just tactics in a Darwinian struggle to perpetuate our genes.

In any dispute, each side thinks it's in the right and the other side is demons.

A word is an arbitrary label - that's the foundation of linguistics. But many people think otherwise. They believe in word magic: that uttering a spell, incantation, curse, or prayer can change the world. Don't snicker: Would you ever say, 'Nothing has gone wrong yet' without looking for wood to knock?

There's a common criticism of evolutionary psychology that it's fatalistic and it dooms us to eternal strife, 'Why even try to work toward peace if we're just bloody killer apes and violence is in our genes?'

The brain is not a bag of traits. It's startlingly complex. There are few or no single genes with a consistent effect on the mind.

If you give people literacy, bad ideas can be attacked and experiments tried, and lessons will accumulate.

I get drawn in when I feel there is something deep and mysterious going on beneath the surface of something.