I believe God did intend, in giving us intelligence, to give us the opportunity to investigate and appreciate the wonders of His creation. He is not threatened by our scientific adventures.
— Francis Collins
One must dig deeply into opposing points of view in order to know whether your own position remains defensible. Iron sharpens iron.
— Francis Collins
I finished up my graduate degree in quantum mechanics, but underwent a bit of a personal crisis, recognizing that I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life. It was too abstract, too far removed from human concerns.
— Francis Collins
The brain is the most complicated organ in the universe. We have learned a lot about other human organs. We know how the heart pumps and how the kidney does what it does. To a certain degree, we have read the letters of the human genome. But the brain has 100 billion neurons. Each one of those has about 10,000 connections.
— Francis Collins
For me, in my Christian belief, prayer is not an opportunity to manipulate God into doing what you want him to. Prayer is an opportunity to have a conversation with God to try to get in tune with what his will is.
— Francis Collins
Successful weight management really means a permanent change in lifestyle – and success in this arena provides that person with a great opportunity to model that behavior for friends and family.
— Francis Collins
When does life begin? When does the soul enter? That’s a religious question. Science is not going to be able to help with that.
— Francis Collins
Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page.
— Francis Collins
I don’t have a problem with the concept that miracles might occasionally occur at moments of great significance, where there is a message being transmitted to us by God Almighty. But as a scientist, I set my standards for miracles very high.
— Francis Collins
Many people struggle with losing weight and then regaining it. But there is no convincing evidence that the effort to lose weight actually promotes more weight gain in the long run.
— Francis Collins
People who are in a position of finding out that they’re at risk for some illness, whether it’s breast cancer, or heart disease, are afraid to get that information – even though it might be useful to them – because of fears that they’ll lose their health insurance or their job.
— Francis Collins
Patenting tends to get people’s juices flowing when you put the word ‘gene’ and the word ‘patent’ in the same sentence. And understandably so. This is stuff we’re carrying around – all of us – inside all of our cells. Should somebody be able to lay claim to it?
— Francis Collins
Scientists must venture outside their comfort zones to show the public how cool – and how important – their work really is.
— Francis Collins
I took care of young adults with cystic fibrosis when I was in my residency training and found this to be a disease that was desperately in need of some explanation.
— Francis Collins
The best diet is the one that can be sustained over the long term, combined with other healthful lifestyle behaviors.
— Francis Collins
If you are in support of in vitro fertilization, then you have to recognize that human embryos are being created in excess of what can be used safely to reimplant for a pregnancy. So they’re going to end up being discarded.
— Francis Collins
I’m aware there are certain products that are being advertised – food products – with ‘no chemicals whatsoever.’ Well, that would be pretty hard to arrange, since everything around us is made up of atoms and molecules – chemicals – including ourselves.
— Francis Collins
God is most certainly not threatened by science; He made it all possible.
— Francis Collins
Image Credit: By Bill Branson, NIH [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
