37 Quotes by Walter Gilbert

Scientists tend to be skeptical, but the weakness of the community of science is that it tends to move into preformed establishment modes that say this is the only way of doing science, the only valid view.

In a sense, the human genome program has the same theme. It is the ultimate answer. Nothing in the individual is more causal, more basic.

I am afraid that those comments go back to the late 80's. At that time I was a skeptic - the argument based on Koch's postulates to try to distinguish between cause and association. ... Today I would regard the success of the many antiviral agents which lower the virus titers (to be expected) and also resolve the failure of the immune system (only expected if the virus is the cause of the failure) as a reasonable proof of the causation argument .

Error is far more common than fraud which probably comprises 1 percent or a tenth of a percent of the literature.

The community as a whole doesn't listen patiently to critics who adopt alternative viewpoints. Although the great lesson of history is that knowledge develops through the conflict of viewpoints.

Here is a human being; it's me!

[Duesberg] is absolutely correct in saying that no one has proven that AIDS is caused by the AIDS virus. And he is absolutely correct that the virus cultured in the laboratory may not be the cause of AIDS.

Biology will tell you a lot of things, but there are many that it can not explain and you need to look at physics instead.

It’s easier to change what you do than people think it is. If you don’t change, your field changes around you.