Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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. "

Related Quotes:

" I did not study science at school until I was 13, when I was totally turned on by a seemingly dreary old teacher who suddenly, unannounced, manufactured a huge explosion in the middle of a totally boring monologue. From then on, all of his class wanted to make explosions. "

Robert Winston

Class

Teacher

Science

" 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?' "

" Nearly all inventions are not recognised for their positive side either when they're made. So, for example, scientists didn't go out to design a CD machine: they designed a laser. But we got all sorts of things from a laser which we never remotely imagined, and we're still finding things for a laser to do. "

Robert Winston

Design

Never

" I'm a traditional Jew with an orthodox background, and it informs much of my approach to science. Of course I think it's very important that if you have those sorts of backgrounds you don't impose them on other people as a clinician, of course. "

" Having a child is arguably the most important thing you do in life. "

" 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. "

" Scientists tend to build a reputation on refuting the theories of those who have gone before. Yet, whatever we hypothesize, observe, measure or record about the natural world, it leaves more unanswered questions. "

" Surgeons always underestimate the pain and disability involved in what they do to people. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My father died when I was nine, but I came from a stable family environment, which I think does contribute to being well-behaved. "

" 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. "

" I do not know of any credible evidence that suggests Dr. Zavos can clone a human being. This seems to be yet another one of his claims to get publicity. "

" I actually don't mind whether people can choose the sex of the baby - in fact humans have been trying to do it for 3,000 years. But there is a real issue about the safety of the technique. "

" 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. "

" Although religion might be useful in developing a solid moral framework - and enforcing it - we can quite easily develop moral intuitions without relying on religion. "

" One of the most important aspects of what makes us who we are is neither straight genes or straight environment but actually what happens to us during development. "

Robert Winston

Important

Development

" 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. "

" By discovering how our minds work, we can improve our learning power and unlock our true potential. "

" I went to school with butterflies of fear every day for years - from primary school onwards - not just worried about being bullied by classmates, but by teachers. "

" Some people, both scientists and religious people, deal with uncertainty by being certain. That is dangerous in the fundamentalists and it is dangerous in the fundamentalist scientists. "

" No matter what I've published - and you can look it up, I've published quite a lot in science, quite a few books too - none of it's very important. All will be forgotten and in a few years time will be a few comments in eight-point type in footnotes at the bottom of the page somewhere. "

" 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

Process

Matter

" Well I think fundamentally, what I think surprises me is the creationist movement, and the notion that somehow you can't believe in God if you believe in evolution. But I don't think there's anything in the Bible which prevents a recognition that evolution is a highly plausible way that we came to be here. "

Robert Winston

God

Believe

" 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. "

" Over the past 20 years, I have presented many science programmes on BBC1. But none is, I think, more socially important, or of more human interest, than this ongoing series of 'Child of Our Time.' "

" We can't any longer have the conventional understanding of genetics which everybody peddles because it is increasingly obvious that epigenetics - actually things which influence the genome's function - are much more important than we realised. "

" In reality, both religion and science are expressions of man's uncertainty. Perhaps the paradox is that certainty, whether it be in science or religion, is dangerous. "

" I don't like seeing myself on television and I don't enjoy filming. What I actually enjoy is thinking about how I am going to express something or how we are going to make the visual metaphor. "

" My own field, the prevention of genetic disorders in babies, has been possible only because of humane work on animals. "