Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson waded into some sensitive terrain with yesterday's op/ed on Francis Collins, President Obama's nominee to head the National Institutes of Health.
Collins, Gerson writes, is a "pioneering "gene hunter"" who
helped identify the genetic markers for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease and adult-onset diabetes. He was in charge of the NIH program that mapped the human genome, the biological equivalent of the Apollo space program. He is a leading advocate of personalized medicine...
And...
Collins is also a theist. And more than that, an evangelical Christian.
Gerson goes on to say that many in the scientific community find Collins' appointment to this prestigious post and his "contradictory" point of view unsettling. That is, not a few of his colleagues find it impossible to square belief in an almighty creator with the pursuit of objective scientific fact. A poll cited by Gerson shows a very small (single digit) percentage of elite scientists believe in a personal god.
For his part, Collins embraces Darwinian theory but says questions persist that science alone can never answer. What say you?
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