I am still the same person doing the same science. Why are people so impressed when some academy in Sweden gives an award?

I am very grateful for the dedicated work and intellectual contributions of generations of talented postdocs, students and research assistants without whom none of the work from my laboratory would have been possible.

We live in an increasingly technological world where the issues are quite complex and based on some complicated science.

People go into science out of curiosity, not to win awards. But scientists are human and have ambitions.

Science is curiosity, testing and experimenting.

It's for scientists to lay out the data and lay out what they think, and then it's for the public to make up its own mind. We don't live in a priesthood where some small group imposes its views on other people - that's not the way that science works, and it's not the way a democratic society should work.