"My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus."

Stephen Hawking, interviewed by Deborah Solomon. He doesn't know his own IQ and thinks people who boast about their IQs are "losers." He thinks Bush's plan to send a man to Mars is "stupid." He likes the enthusiasm Americans have for everything, including science.

How can you say that? Just last month a Gallup poll found that only 35 percent of Americans accept Darwin's theory of evolution, while 45 percent prefer the creationist view.

Maybe it is because people in America have less sense of belonging to a tradition and culture than in Europe, so they turn to fundamental religion.

Religion as a history substitute. Hawking doesn't believe in a "personal God."