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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Robert Winston

Need

Hungry

Foot

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Of course it is a very simple matter to identify genes which might modify intelligence or memory and start thinking about whether you want to enhance a human, and the next generation is going to have to deal with that issue. Should we be trying to enhance humans rather than trying to educate them and so on? "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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?' "

" Far too many scientists, including my good friend Richard Dawkins, present science as the truth and present it as factually correct. And actually, of course, that clearly isn't true. "

" 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

" 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

" 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. "

" Our aggression is a deep instinct which survives in all kinds of manifestations in modern man. "

" Neuroscience is now a very important research area in biology. We are now understanding a lot more about brains in babies, as well as children and adults. "

" I remember eating in school in the years after the Second World War. Most of my friends had miserable portions of Spam with an inedible, glutinous pudding served in containers we called 'coffins.' As a vegetarian, I had a lump of loathsome cheese and some bread. "

" 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

" It is possible that strong levels of belief in God, gods, spirits or the supernatural might have given our ancestors considerable comforts and advantages. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" We are more dependent on science and engineering than at any other time in history. However, there is plenty of evidence that far too many people are scientifically illiterate, often having been put off science at school. "

" I like travelling on my own. It means I'm completely free to think about what's around me. "

Robert Winston

Free

" A young woman in her teens has about 300,000 eggs in her ovaries. By the time she is menopausal, none are left. "

" 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. "

" We must not fail to recognise that television can be a hugely positive influence in children's lives, one of the greatest educators in contemporary society and an increasing influence on all the children followed in 'Child of Our Time.' "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "