'I have to admit that sometimes nature seems more beautiful than is strictly necessary. Outside the window of my home office there is a hackberry tree, visited frequently by a convocation of politic birds: blue jays, yellow-throated vireos, and, loveliest of all, on occasional red cardinal. Although I understand pretty well how bright coloured feathers evolved out of competition for mates, it is almost irresistible to imagine that all this beauty was somehow laid on for our benefit. But the God of birds and trees would have to be also the God of birth-defects and cancer.'
Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory: The Search for the Fundamental Laws of Nature, p.200.
