I do sometimes accuse people of ignorance, but that is not intended to be an insult. I’m ignorant of lots of things. Ignorance is something that can be remedied by education.
You don’t believe that the Earth is round only if you’re an astronaut. You don’t believe Napoleon existed only if you’re a historian. You believe these things because they’re facts, proved by evidence.
I think a fundamentalist is somebody who believes something unshakably and isn’t going to change their mind.
We have to find our own purposes in life, which are not derived directly from our scientific history.
There is great variation in brain power all the way from Einstien on one hand to Sarah Palin on the other.
You can’t imagine how gratifying it is to have a reader come up to you and say, ‘You changed my life.’
Genome sequencing has changed taxonomy.
Public sharing is an important part of science.
I respect you too much to respect your ridiculous ideas.
Presumably what happened to Jesus was what happens to all of us when we die. We decompose. Accounts of Jesus’s resurrection and ascension are about as well-documented as Jack and the Beanstalk.
Religious organisations have an automatic tax-free charitable status.
Just because science so far has failed to explain something, such as consciousness, to say it follows that the facile, pathetic explanations which religion has produced somehow by default must win the argument is really quite ridiculous.
As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers.
I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite – or too devout – to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life.
Thus the creationist’s favourite question “What is the use of half an eye?” Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. Half an eye is just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye.
I do think imagination is enormously valuable, and that children should be encouraged in their imagination. That’s very true.
I do understand people when they say that you destroy the magic of childhood if you encourage too much skeptical questioning.
The obvious objections to the execution of Saddam Hussein are valid and well aired. His death will provoke violent strife between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and between Iraqis in general and the American occupation forces.
It’s about time we start criticizing faith.
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.