"Why do we do basic research? To learn about ourselves."
"By asking a novel question that you don't know the answer to, you discover whether you can formulate a way of finding the answer, and you stretch your own mind, and very often you learn something new."
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Source: Long Genome, Lively Book by David Dobbs, www.wired.com. July 17, 2012.
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More quotes by Walter Gilbert
"It's easier to change what you do than people think it is. If you don't change, your field changes around you."
"Biology will relate every human gene to the genes of other animals and bacteria, to this great chain of being."
"The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought."
"The interaction of the variation in our genes is what's responsible for lots of our attributes and vigor."
"We haven't been able yet to determine in terms of genes what makes a human being a human and not another mammal."