A...reason we are so-so scientists is that our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.

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.

Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.

Students do everything on laptops these days, so I definitely think electronic books are a trend that's going to expand.

Like the early days of the Internet, the dawn of personal genomics promises benefits and pitfalls that no one can foresee.

The theory that religion is a force for peace, often heard among the religious right and its allies today, does not fit the facts of history.

No one knows what the nongenetic causes of individuality are. Perhaps people are shaped by modifications of genes that take place after conception, or by haphazard fluctuations in the chemical soup in the womb or the wiring up of the brain or the expression of the genes themselves.