“Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles.”

Ever since we achieved a breakthrough in the area of recombinant DNA in 1973, left-wing nuts and environmental kooks have been screaming that we will create some kind of Frankenstein bug or Andromeda Strain that will destroy us all.

Moving forward will not be for the faint of heart. But if the next century witnesses failure, let it be because our science is not yet up to the job, not because we don’t have the courage to make less random the sometimes most unfair courses of human evolution.

People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great.

Racists have often used pseudoscience to justify their socially damaging views; watch these films to see how science, by replacing ignorance with knowledge, can undo that damage.

It’s necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do something significant.

The brain is the last and grandest biological frontier, the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe. It contains hundreds of billions of cells interlinked through trillions of connections. The brain boggles the mind.

A clone of Einstein wouldn’t be stupid, but he wouldn’t necessarily be any genius, either.

Science seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner imagined by outsiders. Instead, its steps forward (and sometimes backward) are often very human events in which personalities and cultural traditions play major roles.

I turned against the left wing because they don’t like genetics, because genetics implies that sometimes in life we fail because we have bad genes. They want all failure in life to be due to the evil system.

If scientists don’t play God, who will?

I have been much blessed.

Knowing “why” (an idea) is more important than learning “what” (the fact).

We’re not all equal, it’s simply not true. That isn’t science.

Biology has at least 50 more interesting years.

One of the greatest gifts science has brought to the world is continuing elimination of the supernatural.

I don’t think we are here for anything. We’re just products of evolution. You can say, “Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don’t think there’s a purpose.” But I’m anticipating a good lunch.

I accept my body. I accept how I am and make the best of what I am given. Children orientate towards examples. That’s why I talk solely positive about my body in front of my daughter.

Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable.

Learning to let them be is self care.

Occupy yourself in beholding and bewailing your own imperfections rather than contemplating the imperfections of others.

You’re too powerful to be a slave of acceptance.

There’s no alternative to being yourself. Accept it, honour it, value it – and get on with it.

Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.

Once you accept that playing the game will be uncomfortable, and you do it for a while, it will become much easier (like it does when getting fit). When you excel at it, you will find your ability to get what you want thrilling.