Climbing Scafell Pike in the Lake District when I was about 15. The winds were about 85mph, my legs lifted and I nearly flew off. Thankfully somebody grabbed me.

Getting into a tense argument with Russell Crowe during one of the Vanity Fair Oscar parties.

A car accident in British Columbia 35-40 years ago. I was driving too quickly on a dirt road and lost control of the car, and it went off a cliff and got stuck in some treetops. We were not at all hurt; we actually just climbed out.

Being offered a lift by James Acaster.

That is a difficult question to answer because I’ve worked in so many fields. I’ve worked in five different fields. Now which are the most important? In some ways, the development of the biological species concept, which I did not invent, but I certainly was the person that brought it to general knowledge. And the whole field of new systematics — I really am the one who developed it — was one of my major contributions. There’s another one, which is still not yet realized by almost anybody. I have done more, I believe, for the development of a philosophy of biology than any other person.

One of the answers is that very often I see a statement made by somebody which clearly to me is wrong, and then I work out what is the real right answer, and this happens to me very often.

Professor [Bernhard] Rensch influenced me a great deal because I talked with him about these matters and in his book he raised all the problems that would... or at least most of the problems that would occupy my mind in the later years.

Well, you know, the genotype. I'll mention something that nobody ever mentions. Let's say you have now a genotype that makes a certain protein. And that protein, and you can see this in every issue of Science practically, that protein is a very complex structure, incredibly complex. Now how that step from a group of amino acids to that polypeptide [happens] is an enormous jump. I think right now everybody leaves it alone because nobody yet has figured out just exactly how to attack this problem.

Now look here, young man. If you become a medical doctor you will never have a chance to go to the tropics, you will be far too busy.

My mentor was Professor Erwin Stresemann, who was at that time clearly the world's leading ornithologist, a man who was not only highly intelligent, but very hard working; he edited two journals, he wrote a big textbook, he supervised students, he sent out expeditions.