“What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There’s no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told—and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but

a theory was nothing more than a substitute for experience put forth by someone who didn’t know what he was talking about.

People aren’t studying the natural world any more, they’re mining it. It’s a looter mentality. Anything new or unknown is automatically of interest, because it might have value. It might be worth a fortune.”

“I don’t know how he can live like this,” Kelly said. “Nothing to it,” Thorne said. “All you need is servants.”

For Malcolm, the truest picture of life in the past incorporated the interplay of all aspects of life, the good and the bad, the strong and the weak. It was no good pretending anything else.

What they had in common was a belief that the complexity of the world concealed an underlying order which had previously eluded science, and which would be revealed by chaos theory, now known as complexity theory.

Too much change is as destructive as too little. Only at the edge of chaos can complex systems flourish.”

“Perhaps not,” Levine said. “But absence of proof is not proof of absence.

These kids were smart, they were enthusiastic, and they were young enough so that the schools hadn’t destroyed all their interest in learning. They could still actually use their brains, which in Thorne’s view was a sure sign they hadn’t yet completed a formal education.