“But as the cerebellum degrades with age, so does the quality of memories. The memories are there, but they’re not as good.”

I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, that’s completely inconsistent with the world we observe, that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it. Because we need them.

There are just two people entitled to refer to themselves as “we”; one is the editor and the other is the fellow with a tapeworm.

Educated women have fewer kids. And the kids they do have are better cared for and are more successful. As I like to say, it’s not one thing that we need to focus on. It’s everything all at once.

If you have this idea that the earth is only 6,000 years old, you are denying, if you will, everything that you can touch and see. Youre not paying attention to whats happening in the universe around you.

I understand that you take the Bible, as written in English, translated many many times over the last three millennia as to be a more accurate, more reasonable assessment of the natural laws we see around us than what I and everybody in here can observe. That, to me, is unsettling.

We are part of the process; we are the exquisite result of billions of years of natural research and development.

I’ll admit that the discovery of evolution is humbling, but it is also empowering. It transforms our relationship to the life around us. Instead of being outsiders watching the natural world go by, we are insiders.

Evolution is a theory, and it’s a theory that you can test. We’ve tested evolution in many ways. You can’t present good evidence that says evolution is not a fact.

I used to play ultimate Frisbee, and I just got a reputation for making popcorn at parties. I don’t mean to brag on myself, but I make the popcorn in the pot, and it comes out fine every time.

I feel that I’ve often pointed out that there are countless aspects of life and nature that scientists and scientific thinkers cannot explain.

Our goal in science is to discover universal laws of nature. If one’s faith requires one to abandon or ignore natural laws, well, that person is going to have trouble reconciling religion and science. Otherwise, there is no any conflict.

Science is the best thing humans beings have ever come up with. And if it isn’t, science will fix it.

Humor is everywhere in that there’s irony in just about anything a human does.

The world’s going to change climatically. We just want to control the change. We want to have a high quality of life for billions of people as we pass through this era.

The US Navy has several people on every ship that can navigate by the stars. They don’t fool with that.

I stand by my assertions that although you can know what happens to any individual species that you modify, you cannot be certain what will happen to the ecosystem.