Two world-renowned scientists will offer their views on faith and science Thursday as part of Texas A&M University’s Trotter Endowed Lecture Series.

At 7:00 pm in Rudder Theatre, Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, and Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, will be speaking about the connections between science and religion. Respectively, their speech topics are “The Language of God” and “Without God.”

The free event will be followed by a reception in Rudder Exhibit Hall.

As the leader of the human genome project, Collins served as the project manager for a team of more than 2,000 scientists from six countries. Together, they determined all three billion letters of the human genome.

Stephen Weinberg was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979 for discovering neutral currents.

According to Ihouse, a Christian organization that supports the lecture, the advance of science has contributed to a widespread loss of belief in the existence of a Supreme Being. Weinberg said those who have lost or are losing this belief then face the problem: How is one to live without God?

Collins shares a complimentary perspective, which he stated during his keynote address to the 2007 Annual International Prayer Breakfast, hosted by President George W. Bush.

“These are exciting times for a scientist,” Collins said, “but my hopes and dreams for us do not rest solely in science. I am also a man of faith. When as a scientist I have the great privilege of learning something no human knew before, as a believer I also have the indescribable experience of having caught a glimpse of God’s mind. He is the same God, whether you find him in the cathedral or in the laboratory. He is in the laws of physics, but he is also the ultimate source of love and forgiveness.”