All illnesses have some heredity contribution. It's been said that genetics loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger.
Interpretation
Genetics influence our health, but environmental factors determine how these genetic predispositions manifest.
The quote highlights the interplay between genetics and the environment in determining an individual's health. While our genetic makeup provides a foundation for potential health issues, it is the environmental factors—such as lifestyle, diet, and exposure to various conditions—that ultimately influence whether or not those genetic tendencies lead to illness.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion on public health policy to emphasize the importance of addressing environmental factors.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nobody gets argued all the way into becoming a believer on the sheer basis of logic and reason. That requires a leap of faith.
A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven.
Before the discovery of quantum mechanics, the framework of physics was this: If you tell me how things are now, I can then use the laws of physics to calculate, and hence predict, how things will be later.
The historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them.
That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.
To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates of knowledge, to recoil from fear of difficulty or adverse criticism, is to bring reproach on science. There is nothing for the investigator to do but go straight on, 'to explore up and down, inch by inch, with the taper his reason;' to follow the light wherever it may lead, even should it at times resemble a will-o'-the-wisp.
We live on a minute island of known things. Our undiminished wonder at the mystery which surrounds us is what makes us human. In science fiction we can approach that mystery, not in small, everyday symbols, but in bigger ones of space and time.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.