1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Francis S. Collins

Francis S. Collins Quotes

Francis Sellers Collins is an American physician-geneticist who discovered the genes associated with a number of diseases and led the Human Genome Project. He is director of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, United States.

Before being appointed director of the NIH, Collins led the Human Genome Project and other genomics research initiatives as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute , one of the 27 institutes and centers at NIH. Before joining NHGRI, he earned a reputation as a gene hunter at the University of Michigan. He has been elected to the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science.

Collins also has written a number of books on science, medicine, and religion, including the New York Times bestseller, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. After leaving the directorship of NHGRI and before becoming director of the NIH, he founded and served as president of The BioLogos Foundation, which promotes discourse on the relationship between science and religion and advocates the perspective that belief in Christianity can be reconciled with acceptance of evolution and science, especially through the advancement of evolutionary creation. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Collins to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.



Wikipedia  

✵ 14. April 1950
Francis S. Collins photo
Francis S. Collins: 9   quotes 8   likes

Famous Francis S. Collins Quotes

“The 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 S. Collins

The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2006), p. 211

“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.”

Francis S. Collins

Source: Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith

“Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.”

Francis S. Collins

"Collins: Why this scientist believes in God" http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html, editorial, CNN (April 6, 2007)

“We'll get closer to perfect kids from caring families and good education than we'll ever get from genetics.”

Francis S. Collins

2005 National DNA Day Online Chatroom Transcript, https://www.genome.gov/DNADay/q.cfm?aid=5419&year=2005

“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.”

Francis S. Collins

WOL http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102002402?q=collins&p=par

“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.”

Francis S. Collins

cnn.com http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/

“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.”

Francis S. Collins

Time magazine http://www.numenware.com/article/547

“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.”

Francis S. Collins

cnn.com http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/

“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.”

Francis S. Collins

"God Is Not Threatened by Our Scientific Adventures" http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Science-Religion/2006/08/God-Is-Not-Threatened-By-Our-Scientific-Adventures.aspx, interview by Laura Sheahen, Beliefnet (undated)

Similar authors

Orson Welles photo
Orson Welles 53
American actor, director, writer and producer
Patch Adams photo
Patch Adams 10
Physician, activist, diplomat, author
Werner Heisenberg photo
Werner Heisenberg 42
German theoretical physicist
Billy Wilder photo
Billy Wilder 23
American filmmaker
Janusz Korczak photo
Janusz Korczak 3
Polish physician and writer
Elinor Ostrom photo
Elinor Ostrom 4
American political economist
Pier Paolo Pasolini photo
Pier Paolo Pasolini 3
Italian film director, poet, writer and intellectual
Mahatma Gandhi photo
Mahatma Gandhi 238
pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-rul…
A. J. Cronin photo
A. J. Cronin 7
Scottish novelist and physician
Barbra Streisand photo
Barbra Streisand 5
American singer, actress, writer, film producer, and direct…