Peter

“If a group of atoms in the presence of energy falls into a stable pattern it will tend to stay that way. The earliest form of natural selection was simply a selection of stable forms and a rejection of unstable ones. There is no mystery about this. It had to happen by definition. From this, of course, it does not follow that you can explain the existence of entities as complex as man by exactly the same principles on their own. It is no good taking the right number of atoms and shaking them together with some external energy till they happen to fall into the right pattern, and out drops Adam!”
― Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

“History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion — ie., none to speak of”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“one of the few things I’ve learned is that humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn—when they do, which isn’t often—on their own, the hard way.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“Of all the strange “crimes” that human beings have legislated out of nothing, “blasphemy” is the most amazing—with “obscenity” and “indecent exposure” fighting it out for second and third place.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love