“You can't even begin to understand biology, you can't understand life,...” — Richard Dawkins Quote

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

We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.

I didn't have a very starry school career, I was medium to above average, nothing special.

If something is true, no amount of wishful thinking will change it.

The ocean is the source of life. We all come from there. I think about these one-celled creatures, and I think about the planet. It is related to my obsession with biology, even if it's only a layperson's obsession. The way I visualise what's at the bottom of the ocean is very much to do with how I feel when I'm swimming in the sea.

My degree is in biology, and it will always be my first love. Evolution, ecology, genetics - they were the textbooks I was devouring as a teenager, and it was there that my love of science grew.

I loved the idea that biology was logical.

Influenced by him, and probably even more so by my brother Theodore (a year older than me), I soon became interested in biology and developed a respect for the importance of science and the scientific method.