I love to read the dedications of old books written in monarchies—for they invariably honor some (usually insignificant) knight or duke with fulsome … - Stephen Jay Gould

[T]rying to keep an intellectual away from literature works about as well as recommending chastity to Homo sapiens, the sexiest primate of all.

We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes — one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way.

Our shenanigans, nuclear and otherwise, might easily lead to our own destruction in the foreseeable future. We might take most of the large terrestrial vertebrates with us—a few thousand species at most. We surely cannot extirpate 500,000 species of beetles, though we might make a significant dent. I doubt we could ever substantially touch bacterial diversity. The model organisms cannot be nuked into oblivion, or very much affected by any of our considerable conceivable malfeasances.