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Jul 8, 2009 06:30 PM | 2
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Former Human Genome Project leader Francis Collins will be nominated to lead the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“Dr. Collins is one of the top scientists in the world,” President Obama said in a White House statement today. “And his groundbreaking work has changed the very ways we consider our health and examine disease.”
The 59-year-old Collins, who led the NIH’s genome research division for 15 years, was also involved in the research that uncovered genes for numerous diseases, including cystic fibrosis and Huntington’s disease, notes Bloomberg News.
Many point to his explanatory powers as another key facet of his nomination. “The real advantage he brings is the ability to translate deep and complex science to the lay population,” said American Heart Association president, Clyde Yancy, reports the Associated Press.
Collins also founded BioLogos, which advocates for a closer union of religious faith and science, and authored the 2006 book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.
He had been fingered as a likely pick this spring.
Collins co-authored an article in Scientific American about the human genome in 1999 and another about mapping cancer genes in 2007. He was profiled in a 1998 issue.
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2 Comments
Add CommentIt seems to the BioLogos foundation and Dr. Collins a great deal of the bible is just a metaphor, the creation story for example.
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I fail to understand why Jesus, who is also god, had himself crucified for humanities original sin if our original sin as explained in the holy book of Genesis wasn't the literal account of what actually happened. I fail to see what they suggest all of that was a metaphor FOR. If it is indeed a simple (or rather apparently highly complex) metaphor then what is it trying to convey?
What is the creation of women from the rib of man telling humanity? What is the purpose in laying the story out to place our planet at thousands of years of age when science clearly (currently) shows a much older Earth?
If another commenter would care to illuminate this for me I would appreciate it greatly, as in my mind the subjects are very dark.
This is obviously just one of the problems I see in the Doctor's way at looking at the relationship between science and religion. Trying to reconcile FAITH - "Mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without proof supporting the claim." (as defined by http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/faith) and SCIENCE - "The fact of knowing something based on evidence; knowledge or understanding of a truth" (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/science#Noun) is at best futile and a waste of time; at worst it is damaging to our system of knowledge based on evidence, logic, and reason.
I wonder how the new director of the United States National Institute of Health will refrain from applying his method of reconciling faith and science to the current situation between scientific medicine and alternative medicine. Will I soon have to pay taxes to fund homoeopathy as those across the pond now do?
P.S. I realize that my previous comment is riddled with grammatical and possibly spelling errors. If anybody from Scientific American is paying attention it would be nice to have and edit feature.
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