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?
James D. WatsonRead
If you go into science, I think you better go in with a dream that maybe you, too, will get a Nobel Prize. It's not that I went in and I thought I was very bright and I was going to get one, but I'll confess, you know, I knew what it was.
Interpretation
Pursuing science should be driven by passion and ambition, including the aspiration for great achievements.
James D. Watson emphasizes the importance of having dreams and ambitions in the field of science. He suggests that while one may not always expect to achieve great accolades such as a Nobel Prize, having such aspirations can drive a scientist's motivation and passion for their work.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire new scientists.
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?
I think the reason people are dealing with science less well now than 50 years ago is that it has become so complicated.
Polls consistently show that the majority of Americans favour research using embryonic stem cells and yet politicians continue to pander to the outspoken religious minority that is hampering efforts to develop this potentially valuable technology.
DNA was my only gold rush. I regarded DNA as worth a gold rush.
Science has always been my preoccupation and when you think a breakthrough is possible, it is terribly exciting.
Take young researchers, put them together in virtual seclusion, give them an unprecedented degree of freedom and turn up the pressure by fostering competitiveness.
As well might it be said that, because we are ignorant of the laws by which metals are produced and trees developed, we cannot know anything of the origin of steamships and railways
Just as Mars - a desert planet - gives us insights into global climate change on Earth, the promise awaits for bringing back to life portions of the Red Planet through the application of Earth Science to its similar chemistry, possibly reawakening its life-bearing potential.
Global warming is controversial, of course, but the controversy is mainly over whether human activity is driving it.
So far as physics is concerned, time's arrow is a property of entropy alone.
The apex of mathematical achievement occurs when two or more fields which were thought to be entirely unrelated turn out to be closely intertwined. Mathematicians have never decided whether they should feel excited or upset by such events.
When you're in a spacecraft, you need to know what things you can touch and what things you shouldn't touch!
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