Language can free us of feeling, or almost. Maybe that's one of its functions... so we can uderstand the world without becoming entirely overwhelmed … - Carl Sagan

The great scientists from Thales to Democritus and Anaxagoras have usually been described in history or philosophy books as “Presocratics,” as if their main function was to hold the philosophical fort until the advent of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and perhaps influence them a little. Instead, the old Ionians represent a different and largely contradictory tradition, one in much better accord with modern science. That their influence was felt powerfully for only two or three centuries is an irreparable loss for all those human beings who lived between the Ionian Awakening and the Italian Renaissance.

So in an age when traditional religions have been under withering fire from science, is it not natural to wrap up the old gods and demons in scientific raiment and call them aliens?

with rare exceptions (chiefly the social insects), mammals and birds are the only organisms to devote substantial attention to the care of their young; an evolutionary development that, through the long period of plasticity which it permits, takes advantage of the large information-processing capability of the mammalian and primate brains. Love seems to be an invention of the mammals.