Biological evolution is a system of constant divergence without subsequent joining of branches. Lineages, once distinct, are separate forever. In human history, transmission across lineages is, perhaps, the major source of cultural change. Europeans learned about corn and potatoes from Native Americans and gave them smallpox in return.

The silliest and most tendentious of baseball writing tries to wrest profundity from the spectacle of grown men hitting a ball with at stick by suggesting link…

We live in a capitalist economy, and I have no particular objection to honorable self-interest. We cannot hope to make the needed, drastic improvement in prima…

The true beauty of nature is her amplitude; she exists neither for nor because of us, and possesses a staying power that all our nuclear arsenals cannot threat…

Organic life beneath the shoreless waves Was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly caves; First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass, Move on the mud, or pierce t…

There is no such thing as a unique scientific vision, any more than there is a unique poetic vision. Science is a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions. Bu…

Organisms are not billiard balls, propelled by simple and measurable external forces to predictable new positions on life's pool table. Sufficiently complex sy…