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"50 James Watson Quotes & Sayings

      American     /     View profile
Born: 6 April 1928 | Biologist | Geneticist | Zoologist |

Biology has at least 50 more interesting years.

Biology Interesting Least More
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Take young researchers, put them together in virtual seclusion, give them an unprecedented degree of freedom and turn up the pressure by fostering competitiveness.

Competitiveness Degree Fostering Freedom
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One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.

Also Conception Contrast Could
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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.

Accepted Adherence Based Everyone
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I think the reason people are dealing with science less well now than 50 years ago is that it has become so complicated.

Become Complicated Dealing I Think
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It's necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do something significant.
Necessary Significant Slightly Something
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Science moves with the spirit of an adventure characterized both by youthful arrogance and by the belief that the truth, once found, would be simple as well as pretty.

Adventure Arrogance Belief Both
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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.

Advances After Also Appropriate
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As an educator, I have always striven to see that the fruits of the American Dream are available to all.
Always American American Dream Available
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I have been much blessed.
Been Have Blessed Much
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If you succeed with your first dream, it helps. You know, people trust you, possibly, for the second one. They give you a chance to play out your second one.

Chance Dream Dream It First
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I wanted to see if I could write a good book.

Book Could Good Good Book
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My heroes were never scientists. They were Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood, you know, good writers.

Christopher Good Graham Graham Greene
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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.

About Believe Ever Father
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To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.

Africa Continent Drawn Genetically
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You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient.

English Heard Lover Never
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I never dreamed that in my lifetime my own genome would be sequenced.

Dreamed Genome Lifetime My Own
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We're not all equal, it's simply not true. That isn't science.

Equal Science Simply True
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Our goal should be to understand our differences.
Differences Goal Our Should
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Science has always been my preoccupation and when you think a breakthrough is possible, it is terribly exciting.

Always Been Breakthrough Exciting
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There are many people of color who are very talented.
Color Many People Talented
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I am thrilled to see my genome.

Am Genome I Am See
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The pace of discovery is going unbelievably fast.

Discovery Fast Going Pace
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Some think there is something wrong about enhancing people.

About Enhancing People Some
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It's so difficult writing about living people.
About Difficult Living People
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I would only once have the opportunity to let my scientific career encompass a path from the double helix to the three billion steps of the human genome.

Billion Career Double Encompass
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If we could honestly promise young couples that we knew how to give them offspring with superior character, why should we assume they would decline? Common sense tells us that if scientists find ways to greatly improve human capabilities, there will no stopping the public from happily seizing them.

Assume Capabilities Character Common
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We should govern our actions by assuming that people are more good than bad. Whereas, most of our social policies dictate that people are more bad than good. That you know if you do something, it'll be seized by the rich to exploit the poor.

Actions Assuming Bad Dictate
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I never wanted to be liked by the majority of people, but there were always some people that I desperately wanted to be liked by. And so you've got to behave in a way that... the way I put it is that if you want to be a real intellectual, you've got to have someone to save you.

Always Behave Desperately Got
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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.

Accept After Great He
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If someone's liver doesn't work, we blame it on the genes; if someone's brain doesn't work properly, we blame the school. It's actually more humane to think of the condition as genetic. For instance, you don't want to say that someone is born unpleasant, but sometimes that might be true.

Actually Be True Blame Born
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If you accept that people are the products of evolution, then you have to have an open mind to the truth. Unfair discrimination exists whether we like it or not; I wouldn't have married a gum-chewing vegetarian.

Accept Discrimination Evolution Exists
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Ultimately, we'll help the people we discriminate against if we try to understand more about them; genetics will lead to a world where there is a sympathy for the underdog.

About Against Discriminate Genetics
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I never could read science fiction. I was just uninterested in it. And you know, I don't like to read novels where the hero just goes beyond what I think could exist. And it doesn't interest me because I'm not learning anything about something I'll actually have to deal with.

About Actually Anything Because
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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.

Better Bright Confess Dream
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I have a son, who is a... not an ordinary form of schizophrenia, but clearly, cannot take care of himself. And the great fear of then, of all parents is, when the parents die, who takes care of your child? And the answer is: they become homeless.

Answer Become Cannot Care
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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.

Animal Anxious Be Happy Because
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I've had strong opinions probably since I was born. It makes you unpopular, but what can you do?

Born Had I Was Born Makes
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Great wealth could make an enormous difference over the next decade if they sensibly support the scientific elite. Just the elite. Because the elite makes most of the progress. You should worry about people who produce really novel inventions, not pedantic hacks.

About Because Could Decade
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I want to see cancer cured in my lifetime. It might be.
Cancer Cured Lifetime Might
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You move forward through knowledge. You prevail through knowledge. I love the word 'prevail.' Prevail!

Forward I Love Knowledge Love
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I started doing science when I was effectively 20, a graduate student of Salvador Luria at Indiana University. And that was - you know, it took me about two years, you know, being a graduate student with Luria deciding I wanted to find the structure of DNA; that is, DNA was going to be my objective.

About Being Deciding DNA
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My whole life has been basically trying to find intelligent students or, you know, highly motivated students and giving them an opportunity to do good science.

Basically Been Find Giving
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I wish there would be more movies about scientists.
About I Wish More Movies
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I don't want 100 different cures of cancer. I want, you know, give me five. So if you had, you know, five medicines, you could do away with 90 percent of cancer. That's sort of my objective. I think we're going to do it.

Away Cancer Could Cures
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A clone of Einstein wouldn't be stupid, but he wouldn't necessarily be any genius, either.

Any Clone Einstein Either
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The time has come to seriously ask whether antioxidant use much more likely causes than prevents cancer.
Ask Cancer Causes Come
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I don't want to die until I see cancer cured.

Cancer Cured Die I See
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DNA was my only gold rush. I regarded DNA as worth a gold rush.

DNA Gold Only Regarded
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Genetically modified foods are good.
Foods Genetically Good Modified
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James Watson Quotes & Sayings