Lewis Wolpert
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lewis Wolpert CBE FRS FRSL (born 19 October 1929) is a developmental biologist, author, and broadcaster. Having trained as a civil engineer in South Africa, he moved to King's College London to research cell biology, particularly the development of the embryo. He is currently professor of biology as applied to medicine in the department of anatomy and developmental biology at University College London.
In addition to his scientific and research publications, he has written about his own experience of depression in Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression. This was turned into three television programmes entitled 'A Living Hell' which he presented on BBC2.
He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1980 and awarded the CBE in 1990. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999.
He is regarded as a rationalist and has said several interesting things about his work and science in general. In a 7 April 2005 article entitled "Spiked", The Guardian asked a series of scientists "What is the one thing everyone should learn about science?" Wolpert responded, "I would teach the world that science is the best way to understand the world, and that for any set of observations, there is only one correct explanation. Also, science is value-free, as it explains the world as it is. Ethical issues arise only when science is applied to technology – from medicine to industry."[1]
In a lecture entitled "Is Science Dangerous?"[2], he expanded on this: "I regard it as ethically unacceptable and impractical to censor any aspect of trying to understand the nature of our world."
On May 25th 1994 Professor Wolpert conducted a hour long interview with Dr. Francis Crick called "How the Brain 'sees' " for The Times Dillon Science Forum; a video of the interview was produced by Just Results Video Productions for The Times but copies are very scarce.
On 15 January 2004, Prof. Wolpert and the fringe biologist and parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake engaged in a live debate regarding the evidence for telepathy. It took place at the Royal Society of Arts, London, and the audio along with the full text transcript of the debate can be found on Sheldrake's webpage[3].
He is accredited with the famous quote: "It is not birth, marriage or death which is the most important time in your life, but gastrulation."
He is a Vice-President of the British Humanist Association.
