A permanent base on Mars would have a number of advantages beyond being a bonanza for planetary science and geology. If as some evidence suggests exotic micro-organisms have arisen independently of terrestrial life studying them could revolutionise biology medicine and biotechnology.

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science for they often endure long but false views if supported by some evidence do little harm for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.

There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it but you can't prove that there aren't any so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?

There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem the more likely one will be to treat others with respect kindness and generosity.

In science a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity whereas in religion having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.

It was a real surprise to me to come across the evidence that Christianity might once have been a danced religion. Certainly some of the early church leaders thought this was great and spoke of what seems to have been circle dancing perhaps around an altar.

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but we thought if people needed a crutch for consolation where's the harm? September 11th changed all that.

But I have tried to go over it very carefully not merely what the evidence is but with psychoanalysts and psychologists and I think we're just about all agreed that Lincoln and Speed did not have a homosexual relationship.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

I think what is happening is I think first of all there is confidence in the U.K. economy. We're in a German rather than a Greek position in international financial markets which is very positive and keeps our debt service costs down and we're also beginning to see real evidence of rebalancing.