One thing being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hop… - James Lovelock

Challenging the conventional wisdom is the way to make waves in science.

If you were an artist or novelist, or a poet or somebody like that, nobody would think it odd if you worked in your own home. In science there's none of this at all. I'm almost the only independent scientist in Britain. Everybody else works in large institutions, universities, or industrial labs. Why should one expect scientists to work that way?

Bacteria … have been here for three and a half billion years, and without them we have no chance whatsoever of survival. Humans are something very recent, like the froth on top of a glass of beer.