I'm pretty sure there is some genetic component towards intelligence.

In the case of Stalinism, people actually distorted science because it was for the good of the Communist Party.

There is something cheap about magic that works just because it is magic.

If you read Islamic creationist literature, it's pretty much lifted from American evangelical literature.

Public sharing is an important part of science.

I think it's misleading to use a word like 'God' in the way Einstein did. I'm sorry that Einstein did. I think he was asking for trouble, and he certainly was misunderstood.

There's branches of science which I don't understand; for example, physics. It could be said, I suppose, that I have faith that physicists understand it better than I do.

There are many religious points of view where the conservation of the world is just as important as it is to scientists.

If Bush and Blair are eventually put on trial for war crimes, I shall not be among those pressing for them to be hanged.

The child has no way of knowing what's good information.

People really, really hate their religion being criticized. It's as though you've said they had an ugly face; they seem to identify personally with it.

Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a different reason: It gives them something to do.

There's clearly a lot of Ludditism, and you see it in all the hysteria about every scientific story.

You can't even begin to understand biology, you can't understand life, unless you understand what it's all there for, how it arose - and that means evolution.

I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.

As a liberal, I would hesitate to propose a blanket ban on any style of dress because of the implications for individual liberty and freedom of choice.

Why did humans lose their body hair? Why did they start walking on their hind legs? Why did they develop big brains? I think that the answer to all three questions is sexual selection.

I want very much to communicate science to as wide an audience as possible, but not at a cost of dumbing down, and not at a cost in getting things right.

It is immoral to brand children with religion. 'This is a Catholic child.' 'That is a Muslim child.' I want everyone to flinch when they hear such a phrase, just as they would if they heard, 'That is a Marxist child.'

I did not end up as broadly educated as my Cambridge colleagues, but I graduated probably better equipped to write a book on my chosen subject.

People say I'm shrill and strident.

I have often said that I am a passionate Darwinian when it comes to explaining why we exist.

It's very likely that most mammals have consciousness, and probably birds, too.

At least the fundamentalists haven't tried to dilute their message. Their faith is exposed for what it is for all to see.

The history of science has been one long series of violent brainstorms, as successive generations have come to terms with increasing levels of queerness in the universe.

The world is well supplied with spiders whose male ancestors died after mating. The world is bereft of spiders whose would-be ancestors never mated in the first place.

The supernatural is ubiquitous in children's entertainment, from Grimm and Hans Andersen to Disney and 'Harry Potter.'

'What is the purpose of the universe?' is a silly question.

I would like people to appreciate science in the same way they appreciate the arts.

The earliest books in the New Testament to be written were the Epistles, not the Gospels. It's almost as though Saint Paul and others who wrote the Epistles weren't that interested in whether Jesus was real.

What's going to happen when I die? I may be buried, or I may be cremated, I may give my body to science. I haven't decided yet.

People like to trace their ancestry.

When a company seeks a new chief executive officer, or a university a new vice-chancellor, enormous trouble is taken to find the best person.

I've always been very suspicious of the left-right dimension in politics.

I'm sure Obama is an atheist; I'm sure Kennedy was an atheist, but I doubt if Pope Frank is.

Coming out as an atheist can cost an academic his or her job in some parts of America, and many choose to keep quiet about their atheism.

I am very conscious that you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours.

There's a mystical strain in every country, and eclipses are likely to bring that out.

I love words.

But perhaps the rest of us could have separate classes in science appreciation, the wonder of science, scientific ways of thinking, and the history of scientific ideas, rather than laboratory experience.

I didn't know children were expected to have literary heroes, but I certainly had one, and I even identified with him at one time: Doctor Dolittle, whom I now half identify with the Charles Darwin of Beagle days.

Tortoises can survive for weeks without food or water, easily long enough to float in the Humboldt Current from South America to the Galapagos Islands.

A constellation is not an entity at all, not the kind of thing that Uranus, or anything else, can sensibly be said to 'move into.'

Any teaching of falsehoods in science classes should certainly be identified and stopped by school inspectors. School inspectors should be looking at science teachings to make sure they are evidence-based science.

Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs.

My interest in biology was pretty much always on the philosophical side.

Nico Tinbergen was my doctoral supervisor, and he was a benign, avuncular sort of influence; everybody loved him.

Evil is a miscellaneous collection of nasty things that nasty people do.

I wouldn't want to have the thought police going to people's homes, dictating what they teach their children. I don't want to be Big Brotherish. I would hate that.

I read novels for entertainment rather than for edification, so I tend not to read the sort of novels that are said to illuminate the human condition.