Profile: Dr. Francis Collins (2006)

NOTE: Article is a cut-and-paste "interview-type" presentation. Here are excerpts:

BOB ABERNETHY: Several recent best-selling books have sharpened the old debate between some scientists and some religionists over creation, evolution and, among other issues, stem cell research.

We want to re-run today a story we carried this past summer about a man who is both a research scientist and an evangelical Christian, and sees no conflict between the two fields. He is Dr. Francis Collins, who led the massive effort to discover the human genetic code. His book is called "The Language of God."

Dr. COLLINS (at Press Conference): It is humbling for me and awe-inspiring to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God.

Dr. COLLINS: Now that is very different in my mind, morally, than the union of sperm and egg. We do not in nature see somatic cell nuclear transfer occurring. This is a purely manmade event. And yet somehow we have attached to the product of that kind of activity the same moral status as the union of sperm and egg. I don't know quite how we got there.

Dr. COLLINS: Neither of those outcomes will be good for us in the long term. We need science if we're going to survive in a complicated world and if we're going to treat terrible diseases that cry out for some form of alleviation. And we need faith if we're going to keep ourselves in perspective. So we must seek out the ways in which these worldviews can happily coexist. It's perhaps our strongest mandate right now, if we're really concerned about our own future in this world.

In looking at who Dr. Collins is (Obama's pick for NIH Director) I found this article which seemed interesting. It is clear Collins doesn't have much love for people who actually believe God created the universe directly, but he does believe God directed the ascent of man. I suggest reading the entire article, it's got some interesting stuff in it.

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