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 WATSONMoving 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.
More James Watson Quotes
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We’re not all equal, it’s simply not true. That isn’t science.
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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.
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People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great.
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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.
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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.
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I never dreamed that in my lifetime my own genome would be sequenced.
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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.
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Nothing new that is really interesting comes without collaboration.
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Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely.
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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.
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Knowing “why” (an idea) is more important than learning “what” (the fact).
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Science that leads over the horizon depends on gathering the best minds and enabling them to do what the best minds naturally seek to do: pursue the most thrilling questions of the time.
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Some think there is something wrong about enhancing people.
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There is only one science, physics: everything else is social work.
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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.
JAMES WATSON