“The working draft of the human genome is a humbling and awe-inspiring glimpse into our own instruction book, previously known only to god.”— Francis Collins (2000), On the Craig Venter human genome announcement, Jun [5]
“It’s like taking a public bath.”— Francis Collins (2006), on his public dialogues on the genome, god, and his faith [6]
Collins' 2006 The Language of God, wherein he explains his C.S. Lewis stylized god beliefs as intertwined with science beliefs. |
“I believe that the product of a sperm and an egg, which is the first cell that goes on to develop a human being, deserves considerable moral consequences. This is an entity that ultimately becomes a human. So I would be opposed to the idea of creating embryos by mixing sperm and eggs together and then experimenting on the outcome of that, purely to understand research questions. On the other hand, there are hundreds of thousands of such embryos in freezers at in vitro fertilization clinics. In the process of in vitro fertilization, you almost invariably end up with more embryos than you can reimplant safely. The plausibility of those ever being reimplanted in the future, more than a few of them, is extremely low. Is it more ethical to leave them in those freezers forever or throw them away? Or is it more ethical to come up with some sort of use for those embryos that could help people? I think that's not been widely discussed.”
“If the origin of the human body comes though living matter which existed previously, the spiritual soul is created directly by god.”— Pope Pius XIII (1950), Humani Generis (Ѻ); cited by Collins [3]
“New findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis.”— Pope John Paul II (1996), message to Pontifical Academy of Science; cited by Collins [3]
“A lot of scientists really don't know what they are missing by not exploring their spiritual feelings.”— Francis Collins (c.2001) [2]
“As believers, you are right to hold fast to the concept of god as creator; you are right to hold fast to the truths of the Bible; you are right to hold fast to the conclusions that science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence; and you are right to hold fast to the certainty that claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.”— Francis Collins (2006), The Language of God [4]