“If you can't write well then your ambition to become famous in this way will be frustrated. Either that or you have to get an amanuensis who will write for you.” IfsWayWritingWellsAmbitionFrustrated Author:Richard Lewontin
“In my mind the job of a natural scientist is to bend over backwards to say something which can be demonstrated to be true or at least which is not of such a nature that there's no way to demonstrate that it's false.” WayMindJobsNaturalScientistBeing TrueBackwards Author:Richard Lewontin
“If I put myself on the side of those who see the world as warming up in a bad way, who see the general march of industrial culture as something undesirable, the one thing I must be beware of doing and which my colleagues on that side don't beware of doing, we must beware of saying we've got to stop changing the environment. There is no 'the' environment which we can change, the world is changing all the time.” IfsWorldWayCultureSidesEnvironmentOne ThingChanging The WorldMarchColleaguesUndesirableWarming Up Author:Richard Lewontin
“As an American I must say I haven't been very encouraged by the way in which the people who run the government in the United States have been listening to those contrary voices. And so long as the power to run the world lies in the hands of people who are quite happy to see it get warmer, or fuel be used more, then would those people who oppose it are crying in the wilderness - that's the real problem.” PeopleWorldWayLongHas BeensRealStatesProblemHandsGovernmentRunningUsedLyingVoiceUnitedUnited StatesHavensCryListeningContraryFuelWildernessReal Problems Author:Richard Lewontin
“An ecosystem, you can always intervene and change something in it, but there's no way of knowing what all the downstream effects will be or how it might affect the environment. We have such a miserably poor understanding of how the organism develops from its DNA that I would be surprised if we don't get one rude shock after another.” IfsWayMightWould BeUnderstandingPoorKnowingEnvironmentEffectsShockOrganismsRudeDnaEcosystemsGmos Author:Richard Lewontin
