‘Politicians should listen to scientists’

: UK-based scientist Richard J Roberts, who won the Nobel Prize in physiology in 1993, criticised the “anti-GMO people” and said politicians should listen to scientists and not anti-science people who speak “nonsense” and “tell lies”. He also said he would “organise” support of Nobel laureates on the Genetically Modified Organism (GMO).

Roberts is here to participate in the three-day-long Nobel Prize Series organised by Nobel Media, a wing of Nobel Foundation, which bestows the award. The series, which will see four Nobel prize-winner scientists delivering lectures and interacting with university students and experts, started in Goa on Thursday.

CM Manohar Parrikar inaugurated the series by launching an exhibition, The Nobel Prize: Ideas Changing the World, at Kala Academy. The exhibition will continue for a month. Apart from Goa, programmes would be held in Mumbai and Delhi, and will include lectures and conferences. There will be a conference of teachers at Kala University in Goa on Friday, while President Ram Nath Kovind will host a session at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on February 5. “We are pleased to be back in India for a new Nobel Prize Series. Last year, the interest to participate and learn from Nobel Laureates was enormous,” said Mattias Fyrenius, CEO of Nobel Media.

Serge Haroche, Nobel laureate in physics in 2012; Tomas Lindahl, who won the Nobel in chemistry in 2015, Richard J Roberts, Nobel laureate in medicine in 1993 and Christiane NüssleinVolhard, who won the Nobel in medicine in 1995 are participating in the series. “My aim in life is to convince politicians that science is important. They should listen to the scientists and not listen to the people who are anti-science, who are people who speak lot of pseudo science,” Roberts said.

“At the moment, one of the things that is important is GMO...these are the future of agriculture,” he said.

PANAJI