If all issues are personalized, we lose our capacity to entertain ideas, to generalize from our own or someone else's experiences, to think abstractly. We substitute sentimentality for thought.

The press and the public like certainty and affirmation of popular biases. But real science thrives on the capacity for doubt.

Faith is not a function of stupidity but a frequent cause of it.

Only people who die very young learn all they really need to know in kindergarten.

If all issues are personalized, we lose our capacity to entertain ideas, to generalize from our own or someone else's experiences, to think abstractly. We substitute sentimentality for thought.

In its more authoritarian forms, religion punishes questioning and rewards gullibility. Faith is not a function of stupidity, but a frequent cause of it.

We don't cut off the hands of thieves or castrate rapists. Why must we murder murderers?