QuoteProject
We can't any longer have the conventional understanding of genetics which everybody peddles because it is increasingly obvious that epigenetics - actually things which influence the genome's function - are much more important than we realised.
Robert Winston
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote highlights the significance of epigenetics over traditional genetics in understanding how genes function.

Robert Winston emphasizes the need to shift our perspective on genetics by acknowledging the crucial role of epigenetics. He suggests that external factors influence gene expression more significantly than previously believed, challenging the conventional view that genetics alone determines biological outcomes.

Themes

GeneticsEpigeneticsBiologicalInfluenceScience

In practice

Example use cases

In a lecture on the latest advancements in genetics, you could mention this quote to illustrate the importance of understanding epigenetics.

More from Robert Winston

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 WinstonRead
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?
Robert WinstonRead
In reality, both religion and science are expressions of man's uncertainty. Perhaps the paradox is that certainty, whether it be in science or religion, is dangerous.
Robert WinstonRead
Nearly all inventions are not recognised for their positive side either when they're made. So, for example, scientists didn't go out to design a CD machine: they designed a laser. But we got all sorts of things from a laser which we never remotely imagined, and we're still finding things for a laser to do.
Robert WinstonRead
It's extraordinary to think that if you walked into a room and said you had never heard of Hamlet, you would be regarded as a Philistine. But you could walk into the same room and say, 'I don't know what a proton is,' and people would just laugh and say, 'Why should you know?'
Robert WinstonRead
Some people, both scientists and religious people, deal with uncertainty by being certain. That is dangerous in the fundamentalists and it is dangerous in the fundamentalist scientists.
Robert WinstonRead

Similar quotes

The world of science and the world of literature have much in common. Each is an international club, helping to tie mankind together across barriers of nationality, race and language. I have been doubly lucky, being accepted as a member of both.
Freeman DysonRead
On seeing the marsupials in Australia for the first time and comparing them to placental mammals: “An unbeliever . . . might exclaim 'Surely two distinct Creators must have been at work'”
Charles DarwinRead
Every discovery opens a new field for investigation of facts, shows us the imperfection of our theories. It has justly been said, that the greater the circle of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded.
Humphry DavyRead
Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century's developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.
Richard LindzenRead
True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.
Claude BernardRead
Science is rooted in the will to truth. With the will to truth it stands or falls. Lower the standard even slightly and science becomes diseased at the core. Not only science, but man. The will to truth, pure and unadulterated, is among the essential conditions of his existence; if the standard is compromised he easily becomes a kind of tragic caricature of himself.
Max WertheimerRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.