To know how scientists engage in visual imagery is to understand how they think creatively.
If someone could actually prove scientifically that there is such a thing as a supernatural force, it would be one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science. So the notion that somehow scientists are resisting it is ludicrous.
The true evolutionary epic, retold as poetry, is as intrinsically ennobling as any religious epic.
The toxic mix of religion and tribalism has become so dangerous as to justify taking seriously the alternative view, that humanism based on science is the effective antidote, the light and the way at last placed before us.
The human race is not divided into two opposing camps of good and evil. It is made up of those who are capable of learning and those who are incapable of doing so.
Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius.
Only in the last moment in history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world.
The cost of scientific advance is the humbling recognition that reality was not constructed to be easily grasped by the human mind. This is the cardinal tenet of scientific understanding. Our species and its ways of thinking are a product of evolution, not the purpose of evolution.
Much of good science and perhaps all of great science has its roots in fantasy.
Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals.
We don’t need to clear the 4 to 6 percent of the Earth’s surface remaining in tropical rain forests, with most of the animal and plant species living there.
I had in mind a message, although I hope it doesn’t intrude too badly, persuading Americans, and especially Southerners, of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.
In the attempt to make scientific discoveries, every problem is an opportunity – and the more difficult the problem, the greater will be the importance of its solution.
What’s been gratifying is to live long enough to see molecular biology and evolutionary biology growing toward each other and uniting in research efforts.
Because the living environment is what really sustains us.
Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates the very concept of life.
But I feel music has a very important role in ritual activity, and that being able to join in musical activity, along with dancing, could have been necessary at a very early stage of human culture.
When you get into the whole field of exploring, probably 90 percent of the kinds of organisms, plants, animals and especially microorganisms and tiny invertebrate animals are unknown. Then you realize that we live on a relatively unexplored plan.
If we were to wipe out insects alone on this planet, the rest of life and humanity with it would mostly disappear from the land. Within a few months.
I was a senior in high school when I decided I wanted to work on ants as a career. I just fell in love with them, and have never regretted it.