Robert Winston

Childhood is not dead. Children were worse off when we were hunter-gatherers; they were threatened in medieval times and exploited during the Industrial Revolution. Was it any better in the time of Charles Kingsley or Charles Dickens?

Religion has endured since the dawn of human consciousness precisely because it encompasses so much of being human. No idea has endured so long, gathered up so many disparate needs and wants and feelings, and inspired so many different paths towards understanding it.

I think humans have always wrestled with the Divine Idea - an idea that unites and separates, creates and destroys, consoles and terrifies. Throughout human history, it is an idea that seems sometimes to have caused whole populations to rise up and slaughter one another.

Scientists tend to build a reputation on refuting the theories of those who have gone before. Yet, whatever we hypothesize, observe, measure or record about the natural world, it leaves more unanswered questions.

We give antibiotics to people when they're dying or when they're not well; that's acting God. I mean, acting God is using the tools of creation to try and improve human life, human existence. I don't think that that's a huge problem.

I actually don't mind whether people can choose the sex of the baby - in fact humans have been trying to do it for 3,000 years. But there is a real issue about the safety of the technique.

Although religion might be useful in developing a solid moral framework - and enforcing it - we can quite easily develop moral intuitions without relying on religion.

While nobody has identified any gene for religion, there are certainly some candidate genes that may influence human personality and confer a tendency to religious feelings. Some of the genes likely to be involved are those which control levels of different chemicals called neurotransmitters in the brain.

It is possible that strong levels of belief in God, gods, spirits or the supernatural might have given our ancestors considerable comforts and advantages.

The disturbed individual who believes himself to be Christ, or to receive messages from God, is something of a cliche in our society. Ever since Sigmund Freud, many people have associated religiosity with neurosis and mental illness.

I don't like being a celebrity, really... Some people get greater praise than they deserve because they have had exposure in the media. I don't think I agree with that at all.

We must not confuse religion with God, or technology with science. Religion stands in relationship to God as technology does in relation to science. Both the conduct of religion and the pursuit of technology are capable of leading mankind into evil; but both can prompt great good.

I went to school with butterflies of fear every day for years - from primary school onwards - not just worried about being bullied by classmates, but by teachers.

I remember eating in school in the years after the Second World War. Most of my friends had miserable portions of Spam with an inedible, glutinous pudding served in containers we called 'coffins.' As a vegetarian, I had a lump of loathsome cheese and some bread.

We must not fail to recognise that television can be a hugely positive influence in children's lives, one of the greatest educators in contemporary society and an increasing influence on all the children followed in 'Child of Our Time.'

As parents, can we counter the effect of television violence? One worrying feature in Britain is that so many TV sets are in a child's bedroom; this means that the mediating effect of watching with a parent, the ability to discuss and interpret what has been seen, is lost.

Over the past 20 years, I have presented many science programmes on BBC1. But none is, I think, more socially important, or of more human interest, than this ongoing series of 'Child of Our Time.'

Medicine, which I wouldn't be without, has also been a force for... less good. For example, if you look at our mishandling of the immune system, using antibiotics in children and avoiding infection, we've certainly increased the risk of asthma.

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

Nearly all inventions are not recognised for their positive side either when they're made. So, for example, scientists didn't go out to design a CD machine: they designed a laser. But we got all sorts of things from a laser which we never remotely imagined, and we're still finding things for a laser to do.

I think scientific arrogance really does give a great degree of distrust. I think people begin to think that scientists like to believe that they can run the universe.

Some people, both scientists and religious people, deal with uncertainty by being certain. That is dangerous in the fundamentalists and it is dangerous in the fundamentalist scientists.

I've been all over the world on my own because, as a scientist, you travel a great deal if your work is reasonably successful or published. I get invitations to go to all sorts of strange countries where I would mostly be by myself and just meet other people there, instead of having travelling companions.

Well I think fundamentally, what I think surprises me is the creationist movement, and the notion that somehow you can't believe in God if you believe in evolution. But I don't think there's anything in the Bible which prevents a recognition that evolution is a highly plausible way that we came to be here.

It's very clear from Biblical history and Jewish history that Jewish monotheism wasn't developed in an instant, that it became gradually the accepted norm. But undoubtedly, Jewish ancestors were polytheists.

I'm a traditional Jew with an orthodox background, and it informs much of my approach to science. Of course I think it's very important that if you have those sorts of backgrounds you don't impose them on other people as a clinician, of course.

I don't believe the fertilised egg can be equated with the sort of human life that you and I represent, or our children represent.

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.

It's hard to be a good doctor if you don't think about the social circumstances of who you're treating. There are many Tory doctors, but I think it's difficult to be a doctor and a genuine right-winger.

There were never any doctors in my family. But my grandparents and my mother had a strong social conscience that was formative.

Neuroscience is now a very important research area in biology. We are now understanding a lot more about brains in babies, as well as children and adults.

In reality, both religion and science are expressions of man's uncertainty. Perhaps the paradox is that certainty, whether it be in science or religion, is dangerous.

Some of the hotels I've been put up in for work in Scotland have been shockingly bad. They're the type of hotel where the bedroom is like a cell and the Internet doesn't work. I feel quite aggrieved at that because you should at least be treated reasonably well and have basic comfort.

One of the most important aspects of what makes us who we are is neither straight genes or straight environment but actually what happens to us during development.

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

I used to work for the World Health Organisation in poor countries all over the world - Bangladesh, Korea, the Philippines and India. You learn a whole range of things about how other people are living and try to connect with them to gain an understanding of where they're coming from.

No matter what I've published - and you can look it up, I've published quite a lot in science, quite a few books too - none of it's very important. All will be forgotten and in a few years time will be a few comments in eight-point type in footnotes at the bottom of the page somewhere.

That Britain today is a liberal society is largely because of the philosophy and outlook of the Anglican Church, which did so much to shape our core values in the past few centuries.

In prehistoric times, Homo sapiens was deeply endangered. Early humans were less fleet of foot, with fewer natural weapons and less well-honed senses than all the predators that threatened them. Moreover, they were hampered in their movements by the need to protect their uniquely immature young - juicy meals for any hungry beast.

Our aggression is a deep instinct which survives in all kinds of manifestations in modern man.

Carbon dioxide is unusual because it doesn't go through the usual three phases of matter, from solid to liquid to gas, but it goes straight from solid to gas. The volume of the gas is much greater than the volume of the solid. When a solid turns into a gas, we say it sublimes. The process is sublimation.

Scientists need to be prepared to engage, and the best people to engage with are students, ideally from primary school because there's no question that their capacity to work out complex things is extremely good.

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?'

Parents should talk to their children, even when they are babies and can't talk back.

I do not know of any credible evidence that suggests Dr. Zavos can clone a human being. This seems to be yet another one of his claims to get publicity.

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

We are more dependent on science and engineering than at any other time in history. However, there is plenty of evidence that far too many people are scientifically illiterate, often having been put off science at school.

Following 25 children for the TV series 'Child of Our Time' has been extraordinary. The BBC's original plan was to commemorate the new millennium. What better way than to film a number of expectant mums from across the U.K.? Coming from widely different backgrounds, all were due to give birth on January 1, 2000.

You can now modify the genes of large animals, and the largest animal we are concerned with is the human.

Of course it is a very simple matter to identify genes which might modify intelligence or memory and start thinking about whether you want to enhance a human, and the next generation is going to have to deal with that issue. Should we be trying to enhance humans rather than trying to educate them and so on?