Survival machines that can simulate the future are one jump ahead of survival machines that who can only learn of the basis of trial and error. The t… - Richard Dawkins

Survival machines that can simulate the future are one jump ahead of survival machines who can only learn on the basis of overt trial and error. The trouble with overt trial is that it takes time and energy. The trouble with overt error is that it is often fatal. Simulation is both safer and faster. The evolution of the capacity to simulate seems to have cumulated in subjective consciousness.

You know you've won the argument when the only counter argument they can find is that you are white or male or old.

Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

The attitude that living things are placed here for our benefit still dominates our culture, even where its underpinnings have disappeared. We now need, for purposes of scientific understanding, to find a less human-centered view of the natural world.