black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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 Watson

Moving forward will not be for the faint of heart. But if the next century witnesses failure, let it be because our science is not yet up to the job, not because we don’t have the courage to make less random the sometimes most unfair courses of human evolution.
JAMES WATSON

Courage Evolution Failure Heart Human Job Move Science Time
No good model ever accounted for all the facts, since some data was bound to be misleading if not plain wrong.
JAMES WATSON

Goodness Model Responsibility Wrong
Our goal should be to understand our differences.
JAMES WATSON

Difference Goal Ourselves Understand
Racists have often used pseudoscience to justify their socially damaging views; watch these films to see how science, by replacing ignorance with knowledge, can undo that damage.
JAMES WATSON

Damage Justice Movie Race Replacement Science
Ever since we achieved a breakthrough in the area of recombinant DNA in 1973, left-wing nuts and environmental kooks have been screaming that we will create some kind of Frankenstein bug or Andromeda Strain that will destroy us all.
JAMES WATSON

Achievement Break Destroy Scream
We’re not all equal, it’s simply not true. That isn’t science.
JAMES WATSON

Equality Science Simplicity True
If I had been married earlier in life, I wouldn’t have seen the double helix. I would have been taking care of the kids on Saturday. On the other hand, I was lonely a lot of the time.
JAMES WATSON

Care Children Early Hands Life Lonely Marriage See Time
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.
JAMES WATSON

Mindset Oneself Popular Science Stupidity Success Support
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.
JAMES WATSON

Acceptance Evolution Principle Reason Religious Theory
Do things as soon as you can. If a decision needs to be made, make it. It gives you more time to change your mind.
JAMES WATSON

Change Decision Mindset Need Time
Knowing “why” (an idea) is more important than learning “what” (the fact).
JAMES WATSON

Ideas Important Knowledge Learning
The brain is the last and grandest biological frontier, the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe. It contains hundreds of billions of cells interlinked through trillions of connections. The brain boggles the mind.
JAMES WATSON

Biology Brain Connection Discover Mindset Science Universe
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.
JAMES WATSON

Dreams Help People Play Success Trust
The pace of discovery is going unbelievably fast.
JAMES WATSON

Believe Discover Fast Speed
Some think there is something wrong about enhancing people.
JAMES WATSON

Improvement People Thinking Wrong
The brain, is the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe.
JAMES WATSON

Brain Discover Universe
[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.
JAMES WATSON

Bird Father Man Myself Stop Support Young
Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you’re not going to hire them.
JAMES WATSON

Feeling Interview People Yourself
I never dreamed that in my lifetime my own genome would be sequenced.
JAMES WATSON

Dreams Life Myself Time
As an educator, I have always striven to see that the fruits of the American Dream are available to all.
JAMES WATSON

Dreams Education Ourselves Strive
Take young researchers, put them together in virtual seclusion, give them an unprecedented degree of freedom and turn up the pressure by fostering competitiveness.
JAMES WATSON

Competition Research Togetherness Virtual Young
DNA was my only gold rush. I regarded DNA as worth a gold rush.
JAMES WATSON

Biology Gold Myself Rush Science
I turned against the left wing because they don’t like genetics, because genetics implies that sometimes in life we fail because we have bad genes. They want all failure in life to be due to the evil system.
JAMES WATSON

Biology Evil Failure Life Myself Science System Wings
There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.
JAMES WATSON

Enough Evolution Humanity Identity Intellectual Reason Reservation Separation
Science seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner imagined by outsiders. Instead, its steps forward (and sometimes backward) are often very human events in which personalities and cultural traditions play major roles.
JAMES WATSON

Culture Human Imagination Logic Personality Role Science Tradition
Already for thirty-five years he had not stopped talking and almost nothing of fundamental value had emerged.
JAMES WATSON

Age Fundamental Stop Talk Time Value
It’s necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do something significant.
JAMES WATSON

Employment Important Necessary Yourself

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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More James Watson Quotes