Scientists must venture outside their comfort zones to show the public how cool - and how important - their work really is.
Francis CollinsThe best diet is the one that can be sustained over the long term, combined with other healthful lifestyle behaviors.
Francis CollinsAddressing the conclusions of The God Delusion point by point with the devastating insight of a molecular biologist turned theologian, Alister McGrath dismantles the argument that science should lead to atheism, and demonstrates instead that Dawkins has abandoned his much-cherished rationality to embrace an embittered manifesto of dogmatic atheist fundamentalism.
Francis CollinsOne must dig deeply into opposing points of view in order to know whether your own position remains defensible. Iron sharpens iron.
Francis CollinsMy daughter is a practicing physician so believe me I get a lot of the frustration from her. You get it from patients. For me personally, when I ask my doctor to send me my record, what I get is a scanned PDF of his hard copy! This is not good. It would be hopeless to work with a million people if you had to do this on paper, and one of the reasons this is the right time for this is because of the existence of EHRs.
Francis CollinsScience is... a powerful way, indeed - to study the natural world. Science is not particularly effective... in making commentary about the supernatural world. Both worlds, for me, are quite real and quite important. They are investigated in different ways. They coexist. They illuminate each other.
Francis CollinsProponents of intelligent design don't accept that some of the very complex nanomachines that we have inside ourselves could have come about solely on the basis of natural selection.
Francis CollinsThere are good reasons to believe in God, including the existence of mathematical principles and order in creation. They are positive reasons, based on knowledge, rather than default assumptions based on a temporary lack of knowledge.
Francis CollinsFaith is not the opposite of reason. Faith rests squarely upon reason, but with the added component of revelation.
Francis CollinsPeople 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 CollinsSo 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.
Francis CollinsI'm enormously interested to see where neuroscience can take us in understanding these complexities of the human brain and how it works, but I do think there may be limits in terms of what science can tell us about what does good and evil mean anyway, and what are those concepts about?
Francis CollinsI think history would say that medical research has, throughout many changes of parties, remained as one of the shining lights of bipartisan agreement, that people are concerned about health for themselves, for their families, for their constituents.
Francis Collins[The tests agreed] that I was at higher risk than the average person for Type 2 diabetes, which is what my lab works on. In fact, some of the things they were testing for were variants that we had discovered.
Francis CollinsIt's interesting when you read the life of Christ how much of his time he spent healing the sick. There must have been a reason for that - he was modelling for us what it is we are intended to do by following his path.
Francis CollinsAre we using science in ways that it wasn't intended to, in which case we should be a little careful, or are we using faith in ways that faith wasn't really designed for? There are certain questions that are better answered by one approach than the other, and if you start mixing that up, then you end up in ... conflict.
Francis CollinsI think there are people who's lives have been saved because of the study of the genome.
Francis CollinsThe problem [with genetic research] is, we're just starting down this path, feeling our way in the dark. We have a small lantern in the form of a gene, but the lantern doesn't penetrate more than a couple of hundred feet. We don't know whether we're going to encounter chasms, rock walls or mountain ranges along the way. We don't even know how long the path is.
Francis CollinsBut full sequencing? No. Very hard to interpret. At some point probably we'll all have that opportunity but most of what's there will be stuff that we don't know what to say much about. So it's a great research tool, but for clinical purposes to advise somebody to practice better health maintenance, it's not necessarily gonna be a big one for a while.
Francis CollinsThe tragedy of young-earth creationism is that it takes a relatively recent and extreme view of Genesis, applies to it an unjustified scientific gloss, and then asks sincere and well-meaning seekers to swallow this whole, despite the massive discordance with decades of scientific evidence from multiple disciplines. Is it any wonder that many sadly turn away from faith concluding that they cannot believe in a God who asks for an abandonment of logic and reason?
Francis CollinsIn my own experience as a physician, I have not seen a miraculous healing, and I don't expect to see one.
Francis CollinsIf God made the natural laws, why could he not violate them when it was a particularly significant moment for him to do so? And if you accept the idea that Christ was also divine, which I do, then his Resurrection is not in itself a great logical leap.
Francis CollinsGod decided to create a species with whom he could have fellowship. Who are we to say that evolution was a dumb way to do it? It was an incredibly elegant way to do it.
Francis CollinsIt is certainly true in the United States that there is an uneasiness about certain aspects of science, particularly evolution, because it conflicts, in some people's minds, with their sense of how we all came to be. But you know, if you are a believer in God, it's hard to imagine that God would somehow put this incontrovertible evidence in front of us about our relationship to other living organisms and expect us to disbelieve it. I mean, that doesn't make sense at all.
Francis CollinsSuccessful 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 CollinsA lot of science doesn't require big "ns" but if you're trying to understand something about human health and you're looking at interventions that are not going to be either killing you or making you live forever - they're going to have some tweaking on the outcome - you need big numbers or you don't have enough power.
Francis CollinsEvolution, 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 CollinsI'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.
Francis CollinsAll illnesses have some heredity contribution. It's been said that genetics loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger.
Francis CollinsWhat wakes me up at night is this next generation and what's happening to them. And they're invariably excited about the science that they're doing, but invariably anxious about where there's a future.
Francis CollinsA virus is not just DNA; a virus is also packaged up, covered over with a series of proteins in a nice, elegant, well-compacted form.
Francis CollinsThe word 'living' has so many connotations that I'm almost reluctant to try to define it scientifically because it sounds as if I'm then downgrading all the other significances of that word.
Francis CollinsNobody gets argued all the way into becoming a believer on the sheer basis of logic and reason. That requires a leap of faith.
Francis CollinsWhen 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 CollinsThe human genome will not help us to understand the spiritual side of humankind, or to know who God is or what love is. The well-heeled couple who decide they want to use genetics to have a child that is a gifted musician may end up with a sullen adolescent who smokes marijuana and doesn't talk to them.
Francis CollinsAs you kind of get over the anxiety about [science and evolution], it actually adds to your sense of awe about this amazing universe that we live in, it doesn't subtract from it at all.
Francis CollinsWe give our kids vaccinations. That's a biological enhancement that's considered not just acceptable but actually admirable.
Francis CollinsA technological advance of a major sort almost always is overestimated in the short run for its consequences - and underestimated in the long run.
Francis CollinsThe God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful.
Francis Collins