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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.

Robert Winston

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Robert Winston
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: July 15
Academic
Physician
Politician
Professor
Scientist
Surgeon
Television Presenter
Inner and Outer London
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston
The Lord Winston
Lord Winston
Baron Winston
Professor Robert Maurice Lipson Winston
Baron Winston
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Humans
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Believe
Life
Equated
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More quotes by Robert Winston

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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.
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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Animal rights activists talk about cruelty and torture, some backing their assertions by publishing out-of-date photographs of experiments banned long ago. This is a misrepresentation. The work we do is performed with compassion, care, humanity and humility. I have never seen an animal suffer pain.
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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Whether you're religious or not, there is a real need for other people's religious positions to be treated with the upmost respect.
Robert Winston
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By discovering how our minds work, we can improve our learning power and unlock our true potential.
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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I don't know whether it is important to study science at a young age, though current thinking emphasises the need.
Robert Winston
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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?
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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Our aggression is a deep instinct which survives in all kinds of manifestations in modern man.
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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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.
Robert Winston
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It is important that legislation keeps pace with scientific progress.
Robert Winston