It's very important that there should be cross-fertilisation between government and academia. Both parties can benefit from having a better understanding of how the other works.

I've never really had much of a career plan, and interesting opportunities kept cropping up.

Science and policy-making thrive on challenge and questioning; they are vital to the health of inquiry and democracy.

Enlightened self-interest from those involved in hydrocarbons should lead to the support of technologies enabling the clean use of hydrocarbons, such as carbon capture and storage, and not to the defence of deniers and cranks.

I don't join the New Atheists. So, for example, I wouldn't have the arrogance to lecture some mother who hopes to see her dying child in Heaven - that's none of my business, ultimately. I won't lecture her on the philosophy of science.

Because exploration is not science driven, you've got to ask what is it driven by? And it's driven by politics.

If major companies sourcing in developing countries care only about price and quality, local suppliers will be lured to cut corners on environmental standards to win contracts.

Science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species - if separate species we be - for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world.