The big picture, I think, is that common ancestry is evidentially prior to natural selection in Darwin's theory and in contemporary evolutionary biology as well.

Deism claims that God creates the universe and the laws of nature and then is hands-off, with everything that subsequently happens in nature being due to natural processes.

Earlier attempts to show that simpler theories always have higher prior probabilities have failed, but there is a restricted circumstance in which the claim is right.

I think that the existence of Beethoven is remarkable, but I do not bristle at the suggestion that this event had a low probability given the initial state of the universe.

Biologists now pretty universally regard vitalism as a vestige of a bygone age.

When one theory is simpler than its competitor, this fact is relevant to saying what the world is like.

In many contexts, simplicity is not an aesthetic frill.

Scientists often seek predictively accurate models, rather than models that are true.

Our own species evolved under the influence of group selection, as Darwin emphasized when he discussed the evolution of altruism.

"Tiger is a natural kind" and "Tiger is a historical particular" are incompatible with each other, and evolutionary biology provides a reason for favoring the latter over the former.

I disagree with the widely held view that it is metaphysical necessity, not nomological, that matters in the mind/body problem.

It is not the straining for great things that is most effective it is the doing the little things the common duties a little better and better.

I wish my mind was a dog and I could train it to go sit.

Man only blames himself in order that he may be praised.

Gimme a visky with a ginger ale on the side - and don't be stinchy, beby.

I had never really been around cards.

One of the things that voters have said about Donald Trump, since he has no government experience, is that he will be able to surround himself with good advisers.

Literature is greater than any of us, dammit.

We can grieve over lost powers and memories, or rejoice over gained knowledge and maturity, according to taste.

There is nothing you cannot do.

To be frank: the translations that often sound bad in the mouths of the actors, these have often been done by linguists.