20th-century Biochemist Quotes

Albert Szent-Györgyi

Hans Adolf Krebs

John Kendrew

Alexander R. Todd

Alexander Oparin

Christian de Duve

Gerhard Domagk

I consider it my first duty in the development of chemotherapy to cure those diseases which have hitherto been incurable, so that in the first place those patients are helped who can be helped in no other way.

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.

In no other field of scientific endeavor do otherwise intelligent people feel free to make public claims based on prejudice and ignorance. Yet in relation to psychic phenomena, committed materialists feel free to disregard the evidence and behave irrationally and unscientifically, while claiming to speak in the name of science and reason. They abuse the authority of science and bring rationalism into disrepute.

Rupert Sheldrake

Organization and Energy are the two fundamental problems which all science has to solve.

We are at the dawn of a new era, the era of 'molecular biology' as I like to call it, and there is an urgency about the need for more intensive application of physics and chemistry, and specially of structure analysis, that is still not sufficiently appreciated.

William Astbury

It has now become quite clear that the origin of life was not the result of some "happy chance" as was thought till quite recently, but a necessary stage in the evolution of matter. The origin of life is an inalienable part of the general process of the development of the universe and, in particular, the development of the earth.

Alexander Oparin

Biology has become a mature science as it has become precise and quantifiable. The biologist is no less dependent upon his apparatus than the physicist.

Science. I'm afraid, Dr. Noitall, you do not have any understanding of statistics.

Daniel E. Koshland Jr.

It is often the scientist's experience that he senses the nearness of truth when such connections are envisioned. A connection is a step toward simplification, unification. Simplicity is indeed often the sign of truth and a criterion of beauty.

Mahlon Hoagland

Neither evolution nor creation qualifies as a scientific theory.

Life, like the first blooming, emerges tantalizing to the curious: Why, How, When, Where; Interlocked questions arising from the mysterious encompassing matters quite serious.

Life, after all, is only chemistry, in fact, a small example of chemistry observed on a single, mundane planet.

Arthur Kornberg

It is possible to know thermodynamics without understanding it.

Richard E. Dickerson

We are living in a sea of chemicals that have not been tested for mutagenicity or carcinogenicity.

In principle, one by one, the difficulties of explaining living systems in terms of chemistry and physics disappear. "In principle" are the operative words. In practice the difficulties remain great and seem insurmountable in the foreseeable future. But, from the point of view of the theory of knowledge, there is nevertheless a decisive difference.

Hans Adolf Krebs

One individual alone creates only a note or so that blends with those produced by others.

Marshall Warren Nirenberg

Scientists cannot predict the future any better than anyone else — even about their own field of research.

The drive and urge to explore nature in all its facets is one of the most important functions of humanity.

Fritz Albert Lipmann

Strength that has effort in it is not what you need; you need the strength that is the result of ease.

"Security" is a reality only where there is true peace between neighbors, as in the case of Holland/Belgium, Sweden/Norway, the United States/Canada. In the absence of peace there is no security, and no geographic-strategic settlement on the land can change this. There is no direct link between security and the territories.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz

The first living organisms on Earth doubtless arose in an aqueous environment, and the course of evolution has been shaped by the proper ties of the aqueous medium in which life began.

Albert L. Lehninger

Every biologist has at some time asked "What is life?" and none has ever given a satisfactory answer. Science is built on the premise that Nature answers intelligent questions intelligently; so if no answer exists, there must be something wrong with the question.

Albert Szent-Györgyi

The world amazed me, in that I saw it as I had when I was a child. I had forgotten the beauty and the magic and the knowingness of it and me.

Alexander Shulgin

The community as a whole doesn't listen patiently to critics who adopt alternative viewpoints. Although the great lesson of history is that knowledge develops through the conflict of viewpoints. If you simply have a consensus, it generally stultifies. It fails to see the problems of that consensus and it depends on the existence of critics to break up that iceberg and permit knowledge to develop. This is in fact one of the underpinnings of democratic theory. It is one of the reasons why we believe in notions of free speech and it's one of the great forces in terms of intellectual development.

The kind of questions we ask is conditioned by the kind of answers we expect.