If, therefore, we are serious about improving education, we cannot in — James D. Watson

"Should you be allowed to make an anti-Semitic remark? Yes, because some anti-Semitism is justified. Just like some anti-Irish feeling is justified. If you cant be criticized, thats very dangerous. The whole Larry Summers thing, to say that men are a bit strange and their strangest quality is their ability to understand mathematics -- youre not supposed to even think it."

"To have success in science, you need some luck. But to succeed in science, you need a lot more than luck. And its not enough to be smart — lots of people are very bright and get nowhere in life. In my view, you have to combine intelligence with a willingness not to follow conventions when they block your path forward."

"There is only one science, physics: everything else is social work."

"Never do anything that bores you. My experience in science is that someone is always telling to do something that leaves you flat. Bad idea. Im not good enough to do something I dislike. In fact, I find it hard enough to do something that I like. … Constantly exposing your ideas to informed criticism is very important, and I would venture to say that one reason both of our chief competitors failed to reach the Double Helix before us was that each was effectively very isolated."

"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 dont have the courage to make less random the sometimes most unfair courses of human evolution."

"I just can’t sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it’s nonsense."

"I appeal to all pupils, students and young people, asking you to focus on the horizons that are opening up for you, and which you could only dream of a year ago. Our future will depend on your desire for education and moral values as well as on your entrepreneurial spirit."

"We have created a wealthy society with tens of millions of talented, resourceful individuals who play virtually no role whatsoever as citizens. Bringing these people in — with their networks of influence, their knowledge, and their resources — is the key to creating the capacity for shared intelligence that we need to solve our problems."

"We are shocked when we see educators, timid before criticism and confused about first principles, betray their trust. And we wonder what can be that philosophy of education which believes that young people can be trained to the duties of citizenship by wrapping their minds in cotton wool."

"An [hypertext] encyclopaedia will be an overall attempt by the knowledgeable, the learned societies or anyone else, to represent the state-of-the-art in their field. An encyclopaedia will be a living document, as up to date as it can be, instantly accessible at any time. It will contain carefully authored explanations and summaries of the subject, as well as computer-generated indexes of literature. A reference to a paper from the encyclopaedia conveys authority and acceptance by academic society. A measure of a paper’s standing may be conveyed by the number of links it is away from an encyclopaedia."

"A sample of the modern debate, which neatly summarizes the anti-reductionist position is provided by Grene (1974). She points out that in principle a one-level ontology—the belief, for example, that with increasing knowledge all science will become an account of the world in the language of, say, atomic events—contradicts itself. This is so because such a belief, to be meaningful, requires an ontology which admits both atomic events and cognition. Here at once a second level is smuggled in! It is logically possible... that there might be no levels in between those of atomic events and cognition (that in essence is Descartess position) but the sciences of chemistry and biology consist of some well-tested conjectures that there are such intermediate levels as are represented by molecules, cells, organelles, organs, and organisms."

"All competent thinkers agree with Bacon that there can be no real knowledge except that which rests upon observed facts. This fundamental maxim is evidently indisputable if it is applied, as it ought to be, to the mature state of our intelligence. But, if we consider the origin of our knowledge, it is no less certain that the primitive human mind could not, and indeed ought not to, have thought in that way. For if, on the one hand, every Positive theory must necessarily be founded upon observations, it is, on the other hand, no less true that, in order to observe, our mind has need of some theory or other. If in contemplating phenomena we did not immediately connect them with principles, not only would it be impossible for us to combine these isolated observations, and therefore to derive profit from them, but we should even be entirely incapable of remembering facts, which would for the most remain unnoted by us. Thus there were two difficulties be overcome: the human mind had to observe in order to form real theories, and yet had to form theories of some sort before it could apply itself to a connected series of observations. The primitive human mind, therefore, found itself involved in a vicious circle, from which it would never have had any means of escaping, if a natural way of the difficulty had not fortunately found by the spontaneous development of Theological conceptions. ...chimerical hopes ..exaggerated ideas of mans importance in the universe to which the Theological Philosophy ...at the commencement, ...afforded an indispensable stimulus without the aid which we cannot, indeed, conceive how the primitive human mind would have been induced to undertake any arduous labours."