A key issue in developmental biology at that time was the problem of how cells underwent differentiation, with most workers concentrating on explanations in terms of changes in enzyme and gene regulation.

After an extensive interview he arranged for my weaknesses in foreign languages to be over-looked and so I started a Biology degree at Birmingham in 1967.

I was never very good at exams, having a poor memory and finding the examination process rather artificial, and there never seemed to be enough time to follow up things that really interested me.

I am still a keen mountain walker and an enthusiastic glider pilot.

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.

At age 11 in 1960, I moved to an academic state secondary school, Harrow County Grammar School for Boys.

I had a great time investigating the pigments of different mutant fruit flies by following experimental protocols published in Scientific American, and I also remember making my own beetle collection when it was still acceptable to make such collections.

My parents were born in Norfolk and spent their early years working in the big houses of that rural English county, my mother as a cook and my father as a handyman and chauffeur.

My main efforts focussed on trying to identify the rate controlling steps during the cell cycle. Crucial for this analysis were wee mutants that were advanced prematurely through the cell cycle and so divided at a reduced cell size.

My 6 years with Murdoch were pivotal for my entire research career.

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.

I felt strongly that since the pursuit of good science was so difficult it was essential that the problem being studied was an important one to justify the effort expanded.

I think it was this curiosity about the natural world which awoke my early interest in science.

I met my wife Anne who was a sociology student, and her influence together with activities associated with the student movement of the time opened up my interests amongst other things into the theatre, art, music, politics and philosophy.

My parents were neither wealthy nor academic, but we lived comfortably and they were always extremely supportive of my academic efforts and aspirations, both at school and university.

Therefore, I reasoned that study of the cell cycle responsible for the reproduction of cells was important and might even be illuminating about the nature of life.

This possibility bothered me as I thought it was not advisable to remain in one academic environment, and the long dark winters in Edinburgh could be rather dismal.

Better understanding of the natural world not only enhances all of us as human beings, but can also be harnessed for the better good, leading to improved health and quality of life.

During the winter my attention was attracted to the changes in the stars and planets in the sky.

I decided that the University of Sussex in Brighton was a good place for this work because it had a strong tradition in bacterial molecular genetics and an excellent reputation in biology.

I have an idealistic view of science as a liberalising and progressive force for humanity.

It was during my time at secondary school that I abandoned religion.

It has been a privilege to pursue knowledge for its own sake and to see how it might help mankind in more practical ways.

Scientific understanding is often beautiful, a profoundly aesthetic experience which gives pleasure not unlike the reading of a great poem.

A key issue in developmental biology at that time was the problem of how cells underwent differentiation, with most workers concentrating on explanations in terms of changes in enzyme and gene regulation.

I was by far the youngest of the family, and at times it was like being an only child.

The most important training, though, is to experience life as a writer, questioning everything, inventing multiple explanations for everything. If you do that, all the other things will come; if you don't, there's no hope for you.

And let me take one of the explanations most commonly given: Analysts were pressured to reach conclusions that would fit the political agenda of one or another administration. I deeply think that is a wrong explanation.

And the actual achievements of biology are explanations in terms of mechanisms founded on physics and chemistry, which is not the same thing as explanations in terms of physics and chemistry.

The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.

There is a strong tendency in explanatory prose to invoke quantities of tension, energy, and whatnot to explain the genesis of pattern. I believe that all such explanations are inappropriate or wrong.

It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises-but only performance is reality.

There are no explanations, there are no answers.

In business, words are words; explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality.

When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat.

It is characteristic of science that the full explanations are often seized in their essence by the percipient scientist long in advance of any possible proof.

Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.

You don't need an explanation for everything, Recognize that there are such things as miracles - events for which there are no ready explanations. Later knowledge may explain those events quite easily.

We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words.

Introspection and preserved writings give us far more insight into the ways of past humans than we have into the ways of past dinosaurs. For that reason, I'm optimistic that we can eventually arrive at convincing explanations for these broadest patterns of human history.

I think it is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises - but only performance is reality.

Science is not a game in which arbitrary rules are used to decide what explanations are to be permitted.

I'm not satisfied with the explanations I get from tv or from school.

A key issue in developmental biology at that time was the problem of how cells underwent differentiation, with most workers concentrating on explanations in terms of changes in enzyme and gene regulation.

The truly privileged theories are not the ones referring to any particular scale of size or complexity, nor the ones situated at any particular level of the predictive hierarchy, but the ones that contain the deepest explanations.

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

When my daughter asks, 'What do you do?', every movie I have a different answer. As she grows, she wants more explanations.

In sales, a referral is the key to the door of resistance.

Prayer: the key of the day and the lock of the night.