I don't know whether it is important to study science at a young age, though current thinking emphasises the need.

Ethics is not routinely taught to science students except in medicine, and I think it should be.

There were never any doctors in my family. But my grandparents and my mother had a strong social conscience that was formative.

Of course it is a very simple matter to identify genes which might modify intelligence or memory and start thinking about whether you want to enhance a human, and the next generation is going to have to deal with that issue. Should we be trying to enhance humans rather than trying to educate them and so on?

We must not fail to recognise that television can be a hugely positive influence in children's lives, one of the greatest educators in contemporary society and an increasing influence on all the children followed in 'Child of Our Time.'

Surgeons always underestimate the pain and disability involved in what they do to people.

Childhood is not dead. Children were worse off when we were hunter-gatherers; they were threatened in medieval times and exploited during the Industrial Revolution. Was it any better in the time of Charles Kingsley or Charles Dickens?