"Simpler is always better" is an overstatement.

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 have no doubt at all the Devil grins, As seas of ink I spatter. Ye gods, forgive my "literary" sins --The other kind don't matter.

I feel angry but not homocidal

Remember no man is really defeated unless he is discouraged.

The true friend . . . knows that you need him in that very moment –not tomorrow, not next week. By next week you may happy, or you may be dead.

You sound so miserable.”“All novelists are.

We're not allowed to carry out harsh interrogations anymore, but we're allowed to fly over somebody's village, without due process, and kill them all?

I think handbags, not so much clothes anymore, but I think you can tell a fashion victim by their handbag.

I have a surfboard that says 'Linda Hunt Choice TV Actress: Action.' I am an action star! I don't know what that is about, but I like it.

Reading a piece of poetry with no beat in front of 20 people is way more challenging than rocking for 10,000 people.

We need a Republican Party that shows up on the South side of Chicago and shouts at the top of our lungs, 'We are the party of jobs and opportunity! The GOP is the ticket to the middle class.