Robert Winston 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.
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.
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?'
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.
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.
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.
Man is a competitive creature, and the seeds of conflict are built deep into our genes. We fought each other on the savannah and only survived against great odds by organising ourselves into groups which would have had a common purpose, giving morale and fortitude.
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.
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.
My father died when I was nine, but I came from a stable family environment, which I think does contribute to being well-behaved.
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.
My own field, the prevention of genetic disorders in babies, has been possible only because of humane work on animals.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Our aggression is a deep instinct which survives in all kinds of manifestations in modern man.
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AuthorName
Robert Winston
Profession
Scientist
BirthDate
15 July, 1940
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