Is science today still affected by nonscientific beliefs?
[Yes.] Eighty percent of the South still rejects evolution. Were your parents religious? I am sure both of my parents were agnostics. What influenced you? I had a remarkably broad education: science, humanities, and a great deal of classical reading, Goethe, Kant. The basic theory of systematics, the history of biology and the philosophy of biology, these shifts from being just an ornithologist to these broad concepts of thinking came from being under the influence of the original German [education]. Is Darwin still your hero? A) He still is, and B) he had the greatest impact on the thinking of modern man, of anybody. What is stressful? I never worried much about stress. I was a person who took things easy. When secretaries made a mistake, I just laughed. I’ve had a couple of serious illnesses in my life; I took them easily. I have always been able to cope with pressure. I spent 2 1/2 years in the tropics under highly stressful conditions. [At one point, he was presumed dead.] My rescu
