“The grass and the vines and the willow trees were all so lush and vividly green that he was slightly awed by them. Their location within an alcove of a cliff made all of it more remarkable. It was such an unexpected place for something so beautiful, like an oasis in the middle of a...

“ Perhaps I am just a hopeless rationalist, but isn’t fascination as comforting as solace? Isn’t nature immeasurably more interesting for its complexities and its lack of conformity to our hopes? Isn’t curiosity as wondrously and fundamentally human as compassion?” — Stephen Jay Gould One of the scientific disciplines primarily populated by naturalists today is...