When I was a student almost nobody thought there was any life beyond Earth. Today it's fashionable to say that there is life all over the place, that the universe is teeming with it, but the scientific facts on the ground haven't really changed.
If we do discover more than one type of life on Earth, we can be fairly certain that the universe is teeming with it, for it would be inconceivable that life started twice here but never on all the other earth-like planets.
The scientific content of Genesis 1-11 holds special significance for me because it revolutionized my thinking and, thus, changed my life's direction. Until I reached my late teens, my singular passion was science, astronomy in particular. My life's purpose was to learn more about the universe; nothing beyond that really interested me.
My son is two weeks old today. The minute he came in my arms and looked at me it changed my life. Literally changed my life. When I say changed my life, I mean he showed me love I thought... I know... the word love, there is no way to describe this love. It's so powerful.
Take life as it comes and death as it comes. Death is really beautiful; if it were a bad thing, God would not let it happen to us. It is really freedom, an entry into another, higher life. We must utilize this life in order to realize the life beyond this one. Beyond this earth garden is the infinite land wherein we meet those whom we have thought lost. Although we must not seek death, when it comes we should know that it is the final examination for a great reward.
It is a popular delusion that the scientific enquirer is under an obligation not to go beyond generalisation of observed facts...but anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond the facts, rarely get as far.
I'd bet almost anything that life from another planet, if formed independently from life on Earth, would be more different from all species of Earth life than any two species of Earth life are from each other.
I think the problem is that fashion has become too fashionable. For years, fashion wasn't fashionable. Today fashion is so fashionable that it's almost embarrassing to say you're part of fashion. All the parodies of it. All the dreadful magazines. That has destroyed it as well, because everybody thinks fashion is attainable.
scientific thought does not mean thought about scientific subjects with long names. There are no scientific subjects. The subject of science is the human universe; that is to say, everything that is, or has been, or may be related to man.
If you get a drill and drill down 5km beneath the ground, it's teeming with life - millions of tiny living fossils. They resemble the earliest life forms and suggest that life started under the Ground. The bible talks of Eden as a sunny parkland with white fluffy clouds, but it probably ascended from the region that we now associate with Hell.
The Rio Earth Summit in 1992 changed my life completely, turning me into an activist. From the air, you see things you can't see from the ground - you really understand the impact of man, even in a place you know well. My work is meant to convince people we can no longer live like this.
This is a terrible place to spend your life in. Nobody in Hollywood is normal. Absolutely nobody. And they have such a vicious attitude toward one another. They say much worse things about each other than outsiders say about them, and nobody has any real friends.
Climate has always changed. It always has and always will. Sea level has always changed. Ice sheets come and go. Life always changes. Extinctions of life are normal. Planet Earth is dynamic and evolving. Climate changes are cyclical and random. Through the eyes of a geologist, I would be really concerned if there were no change to Earth over time. In the light of large rapid natural climate changes, just how much do humans really change climate?
Nobody really thinks who does not abstract from that which is given, who does not relate the facts to the factors which have made them, who does not - in his mind - undo the facts. Abstractness is the very life of thought, the token of its authenticity.
There's life all over this universe, but the only life in the solar system is on earth, and in the whole universe we are the only men.
To make films, you have to have something to say. To have something to say, you have to be a student of life. And to be a student of life, you have to be feeding yourself with what life, politics, society, and your family fuels you with.
Astrobiology is the science of life in the universe. It's an attempt to scientifically deal with the question of whether or not we're alone in the universe, looking at the past of life, the present of life, and the future of life. It's an interdisciplinary study incorporating astronomy, biology, and the Earth sciences.