Robert Winston Quotes

Please don't make the mistake of thinking that 'Oryx and Crake' is anti-science. Science is a way of knowing, and a tool. Like all ways of knowing and tools, it can be turned to bad uses. And it can be bought and sold, and it often is. But it is not in itself bad. Like electricity, it's neutral.

Novel technologies and ideas that impinge on human biology and their perceived impact on human values have renewed strains in the relationship between science and society.

No doubt, man will continue to weigh and to measure, watch himself grow, and his Universe around him and with him, according to the ever growing powers of his tools.

We think that it is the best scientists working in the frontier fields of science who are best able to judge what is good and what is bad - if any - in the application of their scientific research.

We pray that every field of science may contribute in bringing happiness - not disaster - to human beings.

There are lots of things that science will enable us to do that we shouldn’t do.

It is the great glory as well as the great threat of science that everything which is in principle possible can be done if the intention to do it is sufficiently resolute.

Science had better not free the minds of men too much, before it has tamed their instincts.

In holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.

Science began as one of the noblest expressions of man's reason. It will continue to serve humanity so long as it never forgets that human beings remain the heart of its purpose.

As long as scientists are free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead, there will be a flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it to practical problems.

Study hard so that you can master technology, which allows us to master nature.

So now, if we don't fund the physical sciences, where will the Next Big Thing come from?

I do worry about the fact that science is becoming a slower process as society is becoming less patient.

Scientists are not delinquents. Our work has changed the conditions in which men live, but the use made of these changes is the problem of governments, not of scientists.

I think there's a certain paranoia about science because there is a certain risk related to science which people are very wary about, and therefore, there is an inherent risk aversion to science and technology or, at least, science and technology of unknown.

Indian science has a bright future.

The way to solve problems in the world is to become scientists and technologists and build things that haven't been built before and discover things that people really don't know about.

Saying that we should stop nanoscience is tantamount to saying we should stop science.

If we choose to ignore science and refuse to fund important scientific research, we voluntarily cede our place as a world leader in innovation.

There are two - parallel - universes of science. One is the actual day-to-day work of scientists, patiently researching into all parts of the world and sometimes making amazing discoveries. The other is the role science plays in the public imagination - the powerful effect it has in shaping how millions of ordinary people see the world.

It is understandable that people want to know how it affects them. But as a scientist, I would hope society would be equally interested in fundamental science.

I see no difference between scientific exploration and human exploration.

Societies will, of course, wish to exercise prudence in deciding which technologies that is, which applications of science are to be pursued and which not. But without funding basic research, without supporting the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake, our options become dangerously limited.

Men are so delving into the mysteries of things that today a boy of twenty knows more than twenty doctors formerly knew.