By the mid-1960s, the nation’s total R&D expenditures would account for 3 percent of the gross national product, a benchmark that was both a symbol of progress and a goal for other countries.

— Matthew Lyon and Katie Hafner, Where Wizards Stay Up Late

Ecomodernists point out that organic farming, which needs far more land to produce a kilogram of food, is neither green nor sustainable.

— Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now

Instead of thanking the Lord for what we cannot fail to have, it would be far more appropriate at mealtime to ask forgiveness for the world’s inability to prevent famines.

— Martin Gardner, The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener

The hard problems around legacy modernization are not technical problems; they’re people problems. The technology is usually pretty straightforward.

— Marianne Bellotti, Kill It With Fire

Sensibilities toward violence have changed so much that religious people today compartmentalize their attitude to the Bible. They pay it lip service as a symbol of morality, while getting their actual morality from more modern principles.

— Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature