Peter Medawar

"Yet the greater part of it, I shall show, is nonsense, tricked out with a variety of metaphysical conceits, and its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others…"

"It is written in an all but totally unintelligible style, and this is construed as prima-facie evidence of profundity."

"In no sense other than an utterly trivial one is reproduction the inverse of chemical disintegration. It is a misunderstanding of genetics to suppose that reproduction is only 'intended' to make facsi…"

"No virus is known to do good: it has been well said that a virus is "a piece of bad news wrapped up in protein."

"Watson's childlike vision makes them seem like the creatures of a Wonderland, all at a strange contentious noisy tea-party which made room for him because for people like him, at this particular kind …"

"Only human beings guide their behaviour by a knowledge of what happened before they were born and a preconception of what may happen after they are dead; thus only humans find their way by a light tha…"

"It is the great glory as well as the great threat of science that everything which is in principle possible can be done if the intention to do it is sufficiently resolute."

"The attempt to discover and promulgate the truth is nevertheless an obligation upon all scientists, one that must be persevered in no matter what the rebuffs—for otherwise what is the point in being a…"