A conversation with Francis Collins about religion and science

with Francis Collins
in Religion, Science & Health, Lifestyle
on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 * * * * *

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A conversation with Francis Collins, the Director of the National Human Genome Institute, about religion and science and how the two can successfully co-exist.

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Keywords:
religion
evolution
stem cell research
Francis Collins
science
creationism

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  • Comments 10
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    1. John Celia  11/09/2008 08:35 PM Report

      If you want to believe in religion, that's fine. All I ask is that you don't fly a plane into a building. Or run torture chambers for hundreds of years in Europe. Or start yet another religious war.

      The main problem with many religious people is their pompous arrogant self-righteous attitude.

      And today, we have the same religious mindset: superiority, forcing others into their own belief system. As a gay man you've taken away my right to marry. Why would you do that? One would think you'd be happy for me. Can't you please keep your religion to yourself? I don't tell you how to live.

      I respect your right to religion. But please respect my right to live.

    2. Alexander Paz  10/19/2008 11:48 PM Report

      I have seem Dr. Collis’ change happening to many people when they reach “maturity”, the closeness to dead and the awareness of mortality has tremendous effects that can even defeat the most rational minds. Religion and faith provide life after dead . . . what a wonderful feeling and hope, even thought is not legitimated.

      I’m always shock by the argument that the universe is so perfect that it cannot be a self creation or a coincidence, and therefore, a supernatural force has to be involved in the creation. The fundamental question then is: how that supernatural force can be a coincidence or self creation?

    3. Teresa Neele  09/15/2008 11:41 PM Report

      yeah, what a moron Dr. Collins is ...mapping DNA; writing books; using his imagination. drivel indeed!

    4. m. grammar  05/26/2008 09:18 AM Report

      I knew there had to be a few in the science community that hold mr. collins view.i guess cs lewis made a good case. great show!

    5. matthew jarosinski  04/19/2008 11:22 PM Report

      science is a tautological system - it explains the same by the same - or in other words it doesn't explain but it describes relationships and processes. So we have contradictions like for example in quantum theory which describes light quanta as duality of waves and particles. How does it explains reality ? It doesn't. In fact the description is not rational although it is accepted. Something cannot be a point and spread in the space like a wave at the same time. Thus when scientist says that religious thoughts are not rational because only science explains world it is simply not true. Science does not explain. scientist doesn't explain - he/she describes without going any further into the matter - can you explain duality of light - or just play with the language ? So Francis Collins could be right.

    6. TK Kenyon  02/22/2008 11:38 AM Report

      Francis Collin's comments are a misapplication of science to religious questions. Science cannot answer whether or not there is/are a God or gods because these purported deities are "outside of nature," which specifically excludes scientific validation or refutation.

      The reason why many, if not most, scientists get upset when a fellow scientist misapplies science to religion is the same as a writer or politican who is quoted out of context in a manner that supports a point of view that they oppose, if not abhor. It's not merely that the rogue scientist is playing for the other team.

      It's like taking Barak Obama's words out of context in this manner: "Barak Obama said, 'We are a Muslim nation,'" when his actual quote is: "Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers." Obama would have the right to be incensed if someone misquoted him that way.

      Likewise, it angers scientists when someone, especially someone who should know better, misapplies our hard-won work to a topic that undermines scientific inquiry.

      The only answer for the question of existence for a God or gods is faith: unquestioning, submissive, thoughtless, irrational, ignorant, oblivious, absurd, delirious faith.

      TK Kenyon

      www.tkkenyon.com

      [url\http://www.amazon.com/Rabid-Novel-T-K-Kenyon/dp/1601640021/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1 203647803&sr=8-1 [/url\

    7. Keyur Desai  02/21/2008 07:01 PM Report

      This conversation can potentially misguide the masses. Science doesn't answer the things Collins described but it does answer the questions that are ``proper" and basically raised by certain Easter religions or Spinoza, Descartes, etc.

      The present scientific knowledge can serve as an crucial addendum to more refined spirituality. In the East, spirituality has well defined premises such as oneness, ultimate reality, transcendental truth, etc. The present scientific knowledge such as Darwinian evolution indicating commonality among all living things or knowing of fundamental physical constitutes certainly help in making those premises accessible and sensible. This so called faith and the question Why is pretty much an ``easy get away". Now since Collins himself is scientist he has his science to neutralize this otherwise fatal take over by ``Whys" but in certain people without scientific training these Whys could create havocs. I guess Collins should have read Einstein's Ideas and Opinions instead C. S. Lewis.

    8. Fourlights  07/16/2007 09:57 AM Report

      >You're mischaracterizing his generalizations.

      >Listen carefully: He doesn't equate the Big Bang

      >with the creation of something from nothing.

      Yes he does. 10:16 in the video.

    9. Alan  06/01/2007 10:52 PM Report

      You're mischaracterizing his generalizations. Listen carefully: He doesn't equate the Big Bang with the creation of something from nothing.

    10. TS  05/19/2007 10:04 AM Report

      I am consistently amazed at the frequency with which religious beliefs get a free pass from rational thought. Dr. Collins showcases his ignorance of other areas of science (e.g., the reference to the Big Bang as the creation of something from nothing) and philosophy (e.g., that atheism is a faith in the lack of a god vs. the lack of faith that there is) and reiterates that religious beliefs exist in the shadows of human knowledge and the fears of human narcissism. To recap, here is one of Dr. Collins's lines of reasoning: 1) He has reviewed evidence of God and has been convinced of God's existence. 2) "If God exists, God is outside of nature." 3) Science is the way we investigate nature, but knowledge of nature "does not help us with this question of God." The only logical conclusion from that, folks, is that Dr. Collins has supernatural powers. (Exactly how did Dr. Collins review this evidence that is not present in the natural world?) There is much more to be said in damning refutation of Dr. Collins's drivel, but I think his own words apparently suffice as evidence that he shouldn't quit his day job.