“From a biblical standpoint, the knowledge Adam and Eve gained by partaking of the apple made them mortal. From a scientific standpoint, the development of the human neocortex spawned… the capacity to anticipate the future, and the knowledge of our own mortality.
“The knowledge of death, rather than death per se, is the worm at the core of the biblical apple. It is that knowledge that made us human and initiated our unrelenting quest for immortality – a quest that profoundly influenced the course of human history and persists to this day.”