Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles.
People say we are playing God. My answer is: If we don't play God, who will?
We're not all equal, it's simply not true. That isn't science.
My parents made it clear that I should never display even the slightest disrespect to individuals who had the power to let me skip a half grade or move into more challenging classes. While it was all right for me to know more about a topic than my sixth-grade teacher had ever learned, questioning her facts could only lead to trouble.
![[As a young man ] I came to the conclusion that the church was just a bunch of fascists that supported Franco. I stopped going on Sunday mornings and watched the birds with my father instead.](https://quotes.thefamouspeople.com/images/quotes/james-d-watson-24374.jpg)
[As a young man ] I came to the conclusion that the church was just a bunch of fascists that supported Franco. I stopped going on Sunday mornings and watched the birds with my father instead.
I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood. Perhaps in other company he is that way, but I have never had reason so to judge him.
At lunch Francis winged into the Eagle to tell everyone within hearing distance that we had found the secret of life.
The ever quickening advances of science made possible by the success of the Human Genome Project will also soon let us see the essences of mental disease. Only after we understand them at the genetic level can we rationally seek out appropriate therapies for such illnesses as schizophrenia and bipolar disease.
I am happy that I can aid those admirable men, both living and dead, who by their pens or their tongues have aided the great cause of human liberty and universal happiness.
It's necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do something significant.
Spotting a rare bird is never worth the bite of a cur. Once bitten by a German shepherd, I knew that I preferred cats, even if they are bird-killers. Life is long enough for more than one chance at a rare bird.
I want to see cancer cured in my lifetime. It might be.
The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was that my father didn't believe in God, and so he had no hang-ups about souls.
My heroes were never scientists. They were Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood, you know, good writers.
It is no coincidence that so many religious beliefs date back to times when no science could possibly have accounted satisfactorily for many of the natural phenomena inspiring scripture and myths.
As a child, I lived with being punier than other boys in class. The only consolation was my parents' empathy - they encouraged constant trips to the local drugstore for chocolate milk shakes to fatten me up. The shakes made me happy, but still, all through grammar school, other kids shoved me around.
My wife and I have a schizophrenic son. We didn't want to accept this for 30 years, so we put him under great pressure when we shouldn't have. He just wanted to be looked after, and we didn't respect that. We tried to make him independent.
I have an odd theory on happiness, and it bothers people. My general theory is that happiness is a reward for an animal doing what it should be doing. So if a horse runs, it feels happy. Or if you are too thin, you can't be happy, because evolution wants you to be tense and anxious, trying to wake up in the morning looking for food.
By the age of 11, I was no longer going to Sunday Mass, and going on birdwatching walks with my father. So early on, I heard of Charles Darwin. I guess, you know, he was the big hero. And, you know, you understand life as it now exists through evolution.
I first became aware of Charles Darwin and evolution while still a schoolboy growing up in Chicago. My father and I had a passion for bird-watching, and when the snow or the rain kept me indoors, I read his bird books and learned about evolution.
It is extraordinary the extent to which Darwin's insights not only changed his contemporaries' view of the world but also continue to be a source of great intellectual stimulation for scientists and nonscientists alike.
The time has come to seriously ask whether antioxidant use much more likely causes than prevents cancer.
A clone of Einstein wouldn't be stupid, but he wouldn't necessarily be any genius, either.
'Genes, Girls, and Gamow' was an attempt, even more than 'The Double Helix,' to mix science with one's personal life. With 'The Double Helix,' no one had done it before, but I thought I'd try.
It's so difficult writing about living people.
Some think there is something wrong about enhancing people.
I am thrilled to see my genome.
I wanted to see if I could write a good book.
I have been much blessed.
I think the reason people are dealing with science less well now than 50 years ago is that it has become so complicated.
