Craig Venter is a fairly well-known scientist, both for his work on sequencing the human genome and on creating the first synthetic life (earlier this year). By many, however, he’s viewed in negative light. This Der Spiegel interview starts off well, and keeps getting better:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Venter, when the elite among gene researchers undertook the decoding of the human genome, you were their greatest enemy. They called you “Frankenstein,” “blood sucker,” “Darth Venter” and even “asshole.” Why do you attract so much hostility?

Give it a read. You’ll see that for a man with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding on the line, Venter really pulls no punches.

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