Francis Collins quotes - page 2

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)
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. View quote
Francis Collins
I became an atheist because, as a graduate student studying quantum physics, life seemed to be reducible to second-order differential equations. Mathematics, chemistry and physics had it all. And I didn't see any need to go beyond that. View quote
Francis Collins
If I'm walking down the riverbank, and a man is drowning, even if I don't know how to swim very well, I feel this urge that the right thing to do is to try to save that person. Evolution would tell me exactly the opposite: preserve your DNA. Who cares about the guy who's drowning? View quote
Francis Collins
We give our kids vaccinations. That's a biological enhancement that's considered not just acceptable but actually admirable. View quote
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. View quote
Francis Collins
I'm always feeling like I'm lacking wisdom. This reassurance that one can ask God for that and it will happen is certainly reassuring to me. View quote
Francis Collins
I'm a serious Christian. I take my faith seriously. I try to practice it every day of the week, not just on Sunday. View quote
Francis Collins
I believe in the literal rising of the body of Christ. It's the cornerstone of my Christian faith. View quote
Francis Collins
The shelves of many evangelicals are full of books that point out the flaws in evolution, discuss it only as a theory, and almost imply that there's a conspiracy here to avoid the fact that evolution is actually flawed. All of those books, unfortunately, are based upon conclusions that no reasonable biologist would now accept. View quote
Francis Collins
Science's domain is the natural. If you want to understand the natural world and be sure you're not misleading yourself, science is the way to do it. (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. View quote
Francis Collins
Faith and reason are not, as many seem to be arguing today, mutually exclusive. They never have been. The letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament defines faith as ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of the things not seen. View quote
Francis Collins
I would not expect religion to be the right tool for sequencing the human genome and by the same token would not expect science to be the means to approaching the supernatural. But on the really interesting larger questions, such as ‘Why are we here?' or ‘Why do human beings long for spirituality?,' I find science unsatisfactory. Many superstitions have come into existence and then faded away. Faith has not, which suggests it has reality. View quote
Francis Collins
As someone who's had the privilege of leading the human genome project, I've had the opportunity to study our own DNA instruction book at a level of detail that was never really possible before. It's also now been possible to compare our DNA with that of many other species. The evidence supporting the idea that all living things are descended from a common ancestor is truly overwhelming. I would not necessarily wish that to be so, as a Bible-believing Christian. But it is so. It does not serve faith well to try to deny that. View quote
Francis Collins
There are answers that science isn't able to provide about the natural world-the questions about why instead of the questions about how. I'm interested in the whys. I find many of those answers in the spiritual realm. That in no way compromises my ability to think rigorously as a scientist. View quote
Francis Collins
Reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. 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. View quote
Francis Collins
I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers. View quote
Francis Collins
We'll get closer to perfect kids from caring families and good education than we'll ever get from genetics. View quote
Francis Collins
God is most certainly not threatened by science; He made it all possible. View quote
Francis Collins
Evolution, as a mechanism, can be and must be true. But that says nothing about the nature of its author. For those who believe in God, there are reasons now to be more in awe, not less. (Francis Collins)
Faith is not the opposite of reason. Faith rests squarely upon reason, but with the added component of revelation. View quote
Francis Collins
By committing the scientific method to religious claims you're committing a logical fallacy. View quote
Francis Collins
So much of what we are currently seeing as far as human suffering and misery comes from diseases that should have been preventable but were not. View quote
Francis Collins
What more powerful form of study of mankind could there be than to read our own instruction book? View quote
Francis Collins