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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 Collins
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote emphasizes that the divine can be found both in religious settings and in the complexities of scientific discovery.

Francis Collins highlights the harmony between faith and science, asserting that the same God who is worshipped in religious locales is also present in the understanding of the natural world through the study of genetics and biology. He views the intricacy and beauty of creation as evidence of a divine creator, suggesting that both spirituality and scientific exploration are valid paths to understanding the divine.

Themes

FaithScienceGenomeCreationIntricacy

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a speech about the relationship between religion and scientific inquiry.

More from Francis Collins

All illnesses have some heredity contribution. It's been said that genetics loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger.
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I 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I took biology in high school and didn't like it at all. It was focused on memorization. ... I didn't appreciate that biology also had principles and logic ... [rather than dealing with a] messy thing called life. It just wasn't organized, and I wanted to stick with the nice pristine sciences of chemistry and physics, where everything made sense. I wish I had learned sooner that biology could be fun as well.
Francis CollinsRead

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