Religion is not the root of all evil, for no one thing is the root of all anything.
It is all too easy to mistake passion that can change its mind for fundamentalism, which never will.
Personally, I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world chess championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility.
When I say that human beings are just gene machines, one shouldn’t put too much emphasis on the word ‘just.’ There is a very great deal of complication, and indeed beauty in being a gene machine.
Segregation has no place in the education system.
The question of whether there exists a supernatural creator, a God, is one of the most important that we have to answer. I think that it is a scientific question. My answer is no.
At least the fundamentalists haven’t tried to dilute their message. Their faith is exposed for what it is for all to see.
I’m a cultural Christian in the same way many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims.
It’s very likely that most mammals have consciousness, and probably birds, too.
At the deepest level, all living things that have ever been looked at have the same DNA code. And many of the same genes.
I am very comfortable with the idea that we can override biology with free will.
If ever there was a slamming of the door in the face of constructive investigation, it is the word miracle. To a medieval peasant, a radio would have seemed like a miracle.
I suppose if you look back to your early childhood you accept everything people tell you, and that includes a heavy dose of irrationality – you’re told about tooth fairies and Father Christmas and things.
I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine.
I once wrote that anybody who believes the world is only 6,000 years old is either ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked.
I am one of those scientists who feels that it is no longer enough just to get on and do science. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organised ignorance.
We humans are an extremely important manifestation of the replication bomb, because it is through us – through our brains, our symbolic culture and our technology – that the explosion may proceed to the next stage and reverberate through deep space.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Complex, statistically improbable things are by their nature more difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable things.
We are a very, very unusual species.