Robert Winston
Robert Winston
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston FMedSci FRSA FRCP FRCOG FIBiol FREngis a professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter and Labour Party politician...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionDoctor
Date of Birth15 July 1940
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IVF is very commercial. The people doing it are among the best-paid in medicine: they charge a lot per treatment and it's not in their interest to make it more effective. Having people fail means that they come back again.
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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.
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I like travelling on my own. It means I'm completely free to think about what's around me.
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Robots may cut down on infection and mean a consultant can see more patients, but wouldn't you rather meet the doctor than a machine?
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Far too many scientists, including my good friend Richard Dawkins, present science as the truth and present it as factually correct. And actually, of course, that clearly isn't true.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Much as I like and admire Richard Dawkins, I do think that to call a book 'The God Delusion' is very worrying because the title implies that if you don't believe in what I believe then you are 'deluded.' That, I think, is a dangerous concept and one that is unlikely to win hearts and minds.
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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.