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The best project is one that asks a novel question.

Walter Gilbert

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Walter Gilbert
Age: 92
Born: 1932
Born: March 21
Biochemist
Chemist
Molecular Biologist
Physicist
Boston
Massachusetts
Wally Gilbert
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More quotes by Walter Gilbert

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We haven't been able yet to determine in terms of genes what makes a human being a human and not another mammal.
Walter Gilbert
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Biology will relate every human gene to the genes of other animals and bacteria, to this great chain of being.
Walter Gilbert
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Today we try to identify a gene and then study its properties.
Walter Gilbert
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In 15 years we'll have all the sequence, a list of the genes everyone has in common and those that differ among people. We know only something like a tenth of 1 percent of the sequence at the moment.
Walter Gilbert
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Why do we do basic research? To learn about ourselves.
Walter Gilbert
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The community as a whole doesn't listen patiently to critics who adopt alternative viewpoints. Although the great lesson of history is that knowledge develops through the conflict of viewpoints.
Walter Gilbert
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It's easier to change what you do than people think it is. If you don't change, your field changes around you.
Walter Gilbert
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The human's place in the universe will be set in the scheme of evolution, the product of our biological inheritance.
Walter Gilbert
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Science doesn't in the slightest depend on trust. It depends completely on the belief that you can demonstrate something for yourself.
Walter Gilbert
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Everyone wants a hand in the outcome, a piece of the knowledge.
Walter Gilbert
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Early on, it's good to develop the ability to write. Learning to write is a useful exercise, even if what you're writing about is not that relevant.
Walter Gilbert
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We know specific genes are turned on in specific cells, but we don't know to what extent this happens.
Walter Gilbert
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I have the same sense of the power and virtue of knowledge that some people get from a religious background.
Walter Gilbert
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We are embedded in a biological world and related to the organisms around us.
Walter Gilbert
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The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought.
Walter Gilbert
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Scientists tend to be skeptical, but the weakness of the community of science is that it tends to move into preformed establishment modes that say this is the only way of doing science, the only valid view.
Walter Gilbert
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The interaction of the variation in our genes is what's responsible for lots of our attributes and vigor.
Walter Gilbert
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Biology will tell you a lot of things, but there are many that it can not explain and you need to look at physics instead.
Walter Gilbert
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Three billion bases of DNA sequence can be put on a single compact disc and one will be able to pull a CD out of one's pocket and say, 'Here is a human being it's me!'
Walter Gilbert
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By asking a novel question that you don't know the answer to, you discover whether you can formulate a way of finding the answer, and you stretch your own mind, and very often you learn something new.
Walter Gilbert