Quotes from Stephen Webb

Believing the world is calm because we have never seen it otherwise is like taking the attitude of a man who jumps off the top of a tall building and figures that, since 29 of the 30 floors have passed without incident, he is going to be okay.

Even the human body contains many more microbial cells than it does human cells; bacteria swarm all over our skin and in our gut (and in many cases are necessary for good health).

Eukaryotes evolve morphological responses to environmental challenges—in other words, they develop new body shapes and body parts—which leads to a variety and freshness that is absent in the prokaryotes.

It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge. Enrico Fermi

The fact that life arose early here gives us little confidence in the belief that life must be common elsewhere. It's important to emphasize the following point: the analysis doesn't show that life is rare. "Life is common" remains our best guess position; it's just that we can't be confident of the position.

one of the deep mysteries of the origin of life is the almost indecent haste with which it arose on Earth.

The Prokaryote-Eukaryote Transition is Rare