Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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. "

Robert Winston

Understanding

Important

Influence

Related Quotes:

" I love the French detective series 'Spiral.' It's quite brutal to watch, but I'm already hooked. "

" Now we have technology where we can modify the genomics of individuals by gene transfer and genetic meddling, we may find that people will want to modify their children, enhance their intelligence, their strength and their beauty and all the other so-called desirable characteristics. "

" It is time my colleagues got real. All British universities doing worthwhile research use animals, and, instead of hiding, they should be boasting of their achievements. "

" 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. "

" My first vote was for a communist in east London when I was a medical student. But I've voted Tory, Labour and Lib Dem in my time. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" About 3 million IVF babies have been born since Louise Brown's birth in 1978. Bizarrely, when this life-giving treatment was first considered, it was massively controversial. A storm of vitriolic protest came from many religious leaders, journalists, politicians, regrettably even other scientists and doctors. "

" Robots may cut down on infection and mean a consultant can see more patients, but wouldn't you rather meet the doctor than a machine? "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I was born with my moustache and, no, I've never been tempted to shave it off. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about my face and, like Gilbert and Sullivan's Katisha, my best feature is my left shoulder-blade. "

" Parents should talk to their children, even when they are babies and can't talk back. "

" People think I appear on television to promote my image. That's not fair. I hate filming. I turned down 'Strictly Come Dancing.' But television is a wonderful opportunity to promote scientific ideas. 'Super Doctors' is a very thoughtful piece. "

" Ethics is not routinely taught to science students except in medicine, and I think it should be. "

" 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. "

" Childhood depression tends to be more common in inner cities, being most frequently related to serious social deprivation, bullying, domestic violence, wartime experience and famine. It is, for example, a serious problem among children who are traumatised refugees. "

" Childhood is not dead. Children were worse off when we were hunter-gatherers; they were threatened in medieval times and exploited during the Industrial Revolution. Was it any better in the time of Charles Kingsley or Charles Dickens? "

" We must not confuse religion with God, or technology with science. Religion stands in relationship to God as technology does in relation to science. Both the conduct of religion and the pursuit of technology are capable of leading mankind into evil; but both can prompt great good. "

" It is important that legislation keeps pace with scientific progress. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" In prehistoric times, Homo sapiens was deeply endangered. Early humans were less fleet of foot, with fewer natural weapons and less well-honed senses than all the predators that threatened them. Moreover, they were hampered in their movements by the need to protect their uniquely immature young - juicy meals for any hungry beast. "

" I've been all over the world on my own because, as a scientist, you travel a great deal if your work is reasonably successful or published. I get invitations to go to all sorts of strange countries where I would mostly be by myself and just meet other people there, instead of having travelling companions. "

" 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

Medicine

Back

" That Britain today is a liberal society is largely because of the philosophy and outlook of the Anglican Church, which did so much to shape our core values in the past few centuries. "

" I think scientific arrogance really does give a great degree of distrust. I think people begin to think that scientists like to believe that they can run the universe. "

Robert Winston

Believe

Great