Patents are highly controversial; so many US companies are trying to patent bits of human DNA they've connected with illnesses, and so potentially with their cures and $$$$. Most scientists outside the US think that these should be in the public domain. Also, I think patents are more engineers' territory than scientists.
Re Hawkin's celebrity dimension; quite difficult (impossible) to consider him without it.
Re Cox, well Ok, he's been minor pop star, he's tenured at Manchester and then gets paid megga bucks by the beeb, so only a modest amount of deep green envy necessary there.
Then it goes much too far when one day, on R4, he casually says "
Oh, I was at Joni Mitchell's house one day...." what
.
B