Science AND Faith (#3-1)

Francis Collins is a physician-geneticist noted for his discoveries of disease genes and leadership of the Human Genome Project.The human genome consists of all the DNA of our species, the hereditary code of life.  Then-President Clinton announced the epic, scientific discovery of the human DNA sequence map saying, “… this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind.” “Today,” he said,“we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God’s most divine and sacred gift.”

 
Francis Collins, had worked closely with the president’s speechwriter strongly endorsing this statement by the President, and when it was his turn to make comment, Dr. Collins said, “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.”

In his popular book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins argues that if you believe in evolution as a biological mechanism, you cannot believe in a creator God.  And yet, in Francis Collins, we have an eminent research scientist, former head of the Human Genome Project, who believes in evolutionary science, AND believes that the fine-tuning, beauty, and order of nature point to a divine Creator. [ in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Collins, who is not Catholic, to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.]

Here then is what Dawkins says can’t exist, someone with a firm belief in evolution as a biological mechanism, and who knows God. Collins, though in a minority, is not alone.