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" I don't know whether it is important to study science at a young age, though current thinking emphasises the need. "
Robert Winston
Thinking
Know
Important
Related Quotes:
" It is possible that strong levels of belief in God, gods, spirits or the supernatural might have given our ancestors considerable comforts and advantages. "
Robert Winston
Belief
Ancestors
Strong
" Religion has endured since the dawn of human consciousness precisely because it encompasses so much of being human. No idea has endured so long, gathered up so many disparate needs and wants and feelings, and inspired so many different paths towards understanding it. "
Robert Winston
Understanding
Feelings
Long
" My own field, the prevention of genetic disorders in babies, has been possible only because of humane work on animals. "
Robert Winston
Own
Animals
My Own
" I think it's important for scientists to be a bit less arrogant, a bit more humble, recognising we are capable of making mistakes and being fallacious - which is increasingly serious in a society where our work may have unpredictable consequences. "
Robert Winston
Mistakes
Work
Society
" I don't think you can impose limits on science because the very nature of homo sapiens is that he - she - is an inquisitive species. You can't control science. You have to control the effects of science. "
Robert Winston
Limits
Think
Nature
" I don't believe the fertilised egg can be equated with the sort of human life that you and I represent, or our children represent. "
Robert Winston
Believe
Egg
Human
" However you define God, and whether you believe in God or not, the world we live in has been shaped by the universal human conviction that there is more to life than life itself; that there is a 'god' shaped hole at the centre of our universe. "
Robert Winston
Life
Live
You
" The disturbed individual who believes himself to be Christ, or to receive messages from God, is something of a cliche in our society. Ever since Sigmund Freud, many people have associated religiosity with neurosis and mental illness. "
Robert Winston
God
Society
People
" It's hard to be a good doctor if you don't think about the social circumstances of who you're treating. There are many Tory doctors, but I think it's difficult to be a doctor and a genuine right-winger. "
Robert Winston
Think
You
Good
" The trouble with climate change is it's an extraordinarily diverse and complex issue, but for example if the BBC would let me make some of the programmes I'd like to make on climate change, I bet you there would be a change of emphasis. "
Robert Winston
Climate Change
Change
You
" Carbon dioxide is unusual because it doesn't go through the usual three phases of matter, from solid to liquid to gas, but it goes straight from solid to gas. The volume of the gas is much greater than the volume of the solid. When a solid turns into a gas, we say it sublimes. The process is sublimation. "
Robert Winston
Go
Process
Matter
" IVF is very commercial. The people doing it are among the best-paid in medicine: they charge a lot per treatment and it's not in their interest to make it more effective. Having people fail means that they come back again. "
Robert Winston
More
Medicine
Back
" It's very clear from Biblical history and Jewish history that Jewish monotheism wasn't developed in an instant, that it became gradually the accepted norm. But undoubtedly, Jewish ancestors were polytheists. "
Robert Winston
Clear
Jewish
History
" You can now modify the genes of large animals, and the largest animal we are concerned with is the human. "
Robert Winston
Animal
You
Now
" Much as I like and admire Richard Dawkins, I do think that to call a book 'The God Delusion' is very worrying because the title implies that if you don't believe in what I believe then you are 'deluded.' That, I think, is a dangerous concept and one that is unlikely to win hearts and minds. "
Robert Winston
You
Win
Believe
" I think that good parenting should allow children to be children. That naivety and slightly open way of looking at the world is very valuable. "
Robert Winston
Think
Parenting
Good
" Some of the hotels I've been put up in for work in Scotland have been shockingly bad. They're the type of hotel where the bedroom is like a cell and the Internet doesn't work. I feel quite aggrieved at that because you should at least be treated reasonably well and have basic comfort. "
Robert Winston
Internet
Hotel
Comfort
" While nobody has identified any gene for religion, there are certainly some candidate genes that may influence human personality and confer a tendency to religious feelings. Some of the genes likely to be involved are those which control levels of different chemicals called neurotransmitters in the brain. "
Robert Winston
Personality
Brain
Religion
" I don't much like being a public figure, because so often how people appear is not how they really are, and I think one of the issues about our society is that we make judgments about people on the basis of very flimsy evidence. "
Robert Winston
Think
People
Society
" By discovering how our minds work, we can improve our learning power and unlock our true potential. "
Robert Winston
Potential
Learning
Work
" Women of child-bearing age steadily run out of eggs by the continuous process of cell death. While reading a copy of the 'Guardian' carefully from cover to cover, a normal woman will have lost on average two eggs - while, typically, a normal man will have made 70,000 new sperm. "
Robert Winston
Man
Death
Age
" When I look in the mirror, I am slightly reminded of self-portraits by Durer and by Rembrandt, because they both show a degree of introspection. I see some element of disappointment; I see a sense of humour, but also something that is faintly ridiculous; and I see somebody who is frightened of being found out and thought lightweight. "
Robert Winston
Disappointment
Thought
Mirror
" It's extraordinary to think that if you walked into a room and said you had never heard of Hamlet, you would be regarded as a Philistine. But you could walk into the same room and say, 'I don't know what a proton is,' and people would just laugh and say, 'Why should you know?' "
Robert Winston
Think
People
Laugh
" We live longer and healthier lives than ever before. Animal research has improved the treatment of infections, helped with immunisation, improved cancer treatment and had a big impact on managing heart disease, brain disorders, arthritis and transplantation. "
Robert Winston
Brain
Research
Heart
" We give antibiotics to people when they're dying or when they're not well; that's acting God. I mean, acting God is using the tools of creation to try and improve human life, human existence. I don't think that that's a huge problem. "
Robert Winston
Tools
God
Life
" A young woman in her teens has about 300,000 eggs in her ovaries. By the time she is menopausal, none are left. "
Robert Winston
Her
Eggs
She
" Surgeons always underestimate the pain and disability involved in what they do to people. "
Robert Winston
Disability
People
Underestimate
" Medicine, which I wouldn't be without, has also been a force for... less good. For example, if you look at our mishandling of the immune system, using antibiotics in children and avoiding infection, we've certainly increased the risk of asthma. "
Robert Winston
Medicine
Good
Children
" I think humans have always wrestled with the Divine Idea - an idea that unites and separates, creates and destroys, consoles and terrifies. Throughout human history, it is an idea that seems sometimes to have caused whole populations to rise up and slaughter one another. "
Robert Winston
Rise
Sometimes
Think
" I used to work for the World Health Organisation in poor countries all over the world - Bangladesh, Korea, the Philippines and India. You learn a whole range of things about how other people are living and try to connect with them to gain an understanding of where they're coming from. "
Robert Winston
World
You
Health