Oliver Sacks: One of my fellow speakers, who has done and is doing beautiful major work in genetics, and has a fine scientific mind, also said that he spoke of his belief in a caring personal God and the supernatural. And he said that he saw no incompatibility between these modes of thought or forms of belief. They didn’t seem to be in two compartments of his mind. And there’s something about the reiteration of the word “supernatural” which made me take issue with him and explode a little bit. And I said that, for me, I thought there was and always had been an incompatibility between a belief in the natural world and anything else. Indeed, I could not imagine a supernatural world, and that I thought any belief in the supernatural was similar to a belief in the occult, and therefore, that I found what he said, in a sense, unintelligible. I think I also — I forget exactly what I said in the heat of the moment — I also said that for myself, beside scientific interests, I had a passionate feeling for music and for art and for the beautiful, and sometimes for the sublime, and that I thought that I had experienced feelings of the sacred and the holy and the religious. And yet, for me, this was all part of being a human being and of the natural world. And I couldn’t imagine — I didn’t see the sense of positing anything supernatural, although I saw why it might be done. I think I also indicated — or I wanted to indicate — my respect for believers. Amongst other things, I work in an Orthodox Jewish hospital and also an orthodox Catholic hospital. And I never — I usually don’t take issue with people. I feel it’s partly their business. But since this actually came up before an audience, I did take issue with it.