The twentieth century prided itself on invalidating the metaphysical. Doubts about the afterlife arose even as so-called nonbelievers attempted to locate surrogates for the loss of meaning atheism occasioned. Enraptured with progress, we deepened our...

The finest peculiarity of belief is that believers do not recognize themselves as believers.

The playwright Edward Albee has characterized [the suddenness of the appearance of fruits and flowers in evolutionary history] as ‘that heartbreaking second when it all got together: the sugars and the acids and the ultraviolets,...

I can think of no sadder example of our food paradigm than two posters taped to the window of a California IHOP. One is a colorful photo of pancakes heaped with bananas, strawberries, nuts, syrups...

To experience biophilia is to love a diversity that, as limitless as it is fragile, both haunts us and fills us with hope.

Having commodified nature, we’re eating the shrapnel of a worldwide homogeneity bomb.

…avacados, prickly pears and papayas used to be gulped down whole, seeds and all, by fridge-sized armadillos called glyptodonts.

Progress has not brought about universal happiness…

When we parted, on the Boulevard du Montparnasse, I leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek. ‘If you do find paradise,’ she said, turning to leave, ‘send me a grape.

Of all the wars that have taken place wince then, none has endured so long as the conflict between knowledge and belief. For centuries now, knowledge has attempted, unsuccessfully, to supersede belief. But the entire...