Slate’s Chris Wilson discusses the views of Francis Collins, President Obama’s nominee for director of the National Institutes of Health and an evangelical Christian:
Most of the time, Collins starts with the science and then reconciles the religion with it. He argues, for example, that the early chapters of Genesis ought to be read figuratively and in total agreement with the astronomical explanation of the universe. But there are some times when Collins’ refereeing of the scientific issues makes me a little uneasy.
[…]This is the area where Collins’ religion is most in danger of intruding on his science. He believes that it’s possible to see evidence of the divine in things like physics equations or patterns of human behavior. While Collins would never suggest that science could furnish any final proof for the existence of God, he’s fond of mentioning that the Bible occasionally uses the word evidence. That is to say, he thinks the presence of the divine can be directly observed, even if it cannot be measured and tested.
This is an audacious claim for any scientist to make, and Collins does not deserve a free pass on this from the scientific community. He is also undeserving of suspicions that he harbors a conservative Christian agenda. As it happens, the most salient point raised by his critics tends to work in his favor. Jerry Coyne rightly describes Collins as a talented administrator. After all, he led the public effort to sequence the human genome and loves to point out that he did it “ahead of schedule and under budget.” That’s the most important virtue for the job he is about to undertake. If Collins’ faith mollifies even a few political conservatives who would otherwise continue to waste time and money fighting research efforts that violate their specific religious tenets, then the benefits of his faith should outweigh whatever qualms scientists might have.
Read the full article here.