Science & Tech Quote by Randy Newman

Randy Newman slips a dare into a pep talk: go study the world, not because it makes you virtuous, but because it is cooler than the stories we tell to make it feel manageable. The line starts with a friendly, almost parent-at-the-kitchen-table cadence - science, anthropology, “really an interesting place” - then swerves into a provocation: evolution isn’t just true (in his telling), it’s “fantastic,” a word usually reserved for Broadway numbers and tall tales. Newman’s comic instinct is doing the work here. He frames scientific thinking not as dour correction but as delight, a narrative engine with better plot twists than theology.

The kicker - “even more than the idea of God I think” - is classic Newman: a disclaimer (“I think”) pasted onto an otherwise blunt comparison. He’s not staging an atheism mic drop so much as puncturing the cultural reflex to treat God as the default grand explanation. Subtext: curiosity is a moral posture, and a democratic one. Anyone can be awed by the sheer weirdness of deep time and adaptation; you don’t need a pulpit, just attention.

Context matters because Newman’s whole career toggles between sincerity and misdirection. He often sings from compromised viewpoints to expose American self-mythology. Here, he flips the technique: he makes earnest wonder sound almost mischievous, as if admitting you’re moved by evolution is a slightly impolite confession. The intent isn’t to mock faith; it’s to upgrade awe.