By asking a novel question that you don’t know the answer to, you discover whether you can formulate a way of finding the answer, and you stretch your own mind, and very often you learn something new.

We haven’t been able yet to determine in terms of genes what makes a human being a human and not another mammal.

Here is a human being; it’s me!

We know specific genes are turned on in specific cells, but we don’t know to what extent this happens.

The interaction of the variation in our genes is what’s responsible for lots of our attributes and vigor.

In 15 years we’ll have all the sequence, a list of the genes everyone has in common and those that differ among people. We know only something like a tenth of 1 percent of the sequence at the moment.

The human’s place in the universe will be set in the scheme of evolution, the product of our biological inheritance.

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.

Science doesn’t in the slightest depend on trust. It depends completely on the belief that you can demonstrate something for yourself.

Early on, it’s good to develop the ability to write. Learning to write is a useful exercise, even if what you’re writing about is not that relevant.