I Think It Was This Curiosity About

At Age 11 In 1960, I Moved To An Academic State Secondary School, Harrow County Grammar School For Boys.

This Time At Birmingham Turned Me Into A General Biologist, And Ever Since Then I Have Always Tried To Take A Biological Approach To Any Research Project That I Have Undertaken.

Like Many Students, I Found The Drudgery Of Real Experiments And The Slowness Of Progress A Complete Shock, And At My Low Points I Contemplated Other Alternative Careers Including Study Of The Philosophy Or Sociology Of Science.

How Scientists Go About Their Job: And It's A Process, It's A Question Of Asking Questions, Respecting Observation, Respecting Experiment, Having Tentative Explanations And Then Testing Them.... There Is A Problem Sometimes With How We Teach Science At Schools. Because We Sometimes Teach It As If It Has Been Chiseled In Stone.

Ever Since Sir Isaac Newton's Times, Scientists Have Worked In The Same Sort Of Way: They Show A Great Respect For Experiment And Observation, They Don't Cherry Pick Data, They Take A Skeptical Approach To What They Do. And Then Scientists Work Together To Get A Consensus As To What Should Be Believed And That Generates Very Reliable Knowledge And That Reliable Knowledge Drives Innovation