I think it's important for scientists to be a bit less arrogant, a bit more humble, recognising we are capable of making mistakes and being fallacious - which is increasingly serious in a society where our work may have unpredictable consequences.

It's extraordinary to think that if you walked into a room and said you had never heard of Hamlet, you would be regarded as a Philistine. But you could walk into the same room and say, 'I don't know what a proton is,' and people would just laugh and say, 'Why should you know?'

Both in Britain and America, huge publicity has been given to stem cells, particularly embryonic stem cells, and the potential they offer. Of course, the study of stem cells is one of the most exciting areas in biology, but I think it is unlikely that embryonic stem cells are likely to be useful in healthcare for a long time.

I don't much like being a public figure, because so often how people appear is not how they really are, and I think one of the issues about our society is that we make judgments about people on the basis of very flimsy evidence.

Ethics is not routinely taught to science students except in medicine, and I think it should be.

I don't know whether it is important to study science at a young age, though current thinking emphasises the need.

I like travelling on my own. It means I'm completely free to think about what's around me.

My father died when I was nine, but I came from a stable family environment, which I think does contribute to being well-behaved.

When I grew up, we didn't have a TV, and I think more families today have ambitions of getting out of their environment, such as sending their children to university.