Robert Winston Quotes

Many families would like to avoid burdening future generations with inherited diseases such as haemophilia or severe developmental disorders. But most would think it wrong to edit the genes that influence the 'normal' range of human variation, from eye colour to intelligence or athletic ability.

No one really has the guts to say it, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?

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?

No one may have the guts to say this, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?

The problem with existing biology is you change only one or two genes at a time.

Right now people are interested in genetic engineering to help the human race. That's a noble cause, and that's where we should be heading. But once we get past that - once we understand what genetic diseases we can deal with - when we start thinking about the future, there's an opportunity to create some new life-forms.

What the public needs to understand is that these new technologies, especially in recombinant DNA technology, allow scientists to bypass biological boundaries altogether.

Genetic engineering of are own species is not a question of if, but only a question of when….The human race may bifurcate into two subspecies of humans: Enhanced and Unenhanced.

The time to talk about it in schools and churches and magazines and debate societies is now. If you wait, five years from now the gene doctor will be hanging out the MAKE A SMARTER BABY sign down the street.

Renegade scientists and totalitarian loonies are not the folks most likely to abuse genetic engineering. You and I are--not because we are bad but because we want to do good. In a world dominated by competition, parents understandably want to give their kids every advantage. ... The most likely way for eugenics to enter into our lives is through the front door as nervous parents ... will fall over one another to be first to give Junior a better set of genes.

There is a lot of hype and fear about this much-talked-about prospect of designer babies.

In the 1920s and 1930s, scientists from both the political left and right would not have found the idea of designer babies particularly dangerous - though, of course, they would not have used that phrase.

With worms you can just change genes at random and see if you can find a mutant that does what you want it to do.

As we all saw in grade school, once you learn how to read a book, somebody is going to want to write one - that's how authors are made. Once we know how to read our own genetic code, someone is going to want to rewrite that 'text,' tinker with traits - play God, some would say.

India has the opportunity to be a leader in genetic engineering, It has institutions that no other country has.

People have freaked out when I tell them that my dragons are scientifically based... what else can you call a genetically engineered life form?

In the last century, as we learned more about genes, we were able to devise ways of accelerating evolution.

Every orchid or rose or lizard or snake is the work of a dedicated and skilled breeder. There are thousands of people, amateurs and professionals, who devote their lives to this business. Now imagine what will happen when the tools of genetic engineering become accessible to these people.

In the past, when we've tried gene therapy, we haven't had tools that have allowed targeted gene correction.

Traits acquired during one's lifetime - muscles built up in the gym, for example - cannot be passed on to the next generation. Now with technology, as it happens, we might indeed be able to transfer some of our acquired traits on to our selected offspring by genetic engineering.

How we understand our own selves and how we work with our DNA software has implications that will affect everything from vaccine development to new approaches to antibiotics, new sources of food, new sources of chemicals, even potentially new sources of energy.

If there is anything more frightening than the threat of global nuclear war, it is the certainty that humans not only stand on the verge of producing new life forms but may soon be able to tinker with them as if they were vintage convertibles or bonsai trees.

Our increasing ability to alter our biology and open up the processes of life is now fueling a new cultural war.

If we could honestly promise young couples that we knew how to give them offspring with superior character, why should we assume they would decline? Common sense tells us that if scientists find ways to greatly improve human capabilities, there will no stopping the public from happily seizing them.

Some think there is something wrong about enhancing people.