By now you may have been made aware that Barack Obama has nominated Francis Collins for the position of director of the National Institutes of Health.
A search for “Francis Collins” in Google News returned 270 hits for the past week alone. It is fascinating to read some of the news related articles which cannot seem to help mentioning that he, hold your breath now, believe in the three letter “G” word and is a “C” word that rhymes with “histian.” Many, for some odd, un-contextual and utterly irrelevant reason, mention that Francis Collins was/is a musician and is oft seen looking cool man, cool:
He plays guitar and rides a motorcycle
but I hear that he is also, like, a scientist and stuff
Francis Collins accomplished more in one single project-as the head of the Human Genome Project-than those activist atheists who are questioning his scientific credentials by committing the ad hominem about his faith commitments will in a lifetime or ten. Yet, this is no reason to get all envious about his nomination.
Sam Harris, of course, got into the act which is fascinating considering that Harris has admitted that he is becoming a scientist in order to seek evidence for his particular and peculiar atheism-he is merely seeking soft science confirmation for his preconceived notions.
I wonder what would happen if an atheist or otherwise evolution = God is superfluous at best adherent were to be nominated. Would they be racked? Would they be caricatured to the tune of, “So, you believe that life came into being when lightning struck a swamp! How could this guy be trusted as the head of the National Institutes of Health?”
I even heard a radio show interviewee who referred to Francis Collins as a “creationist” and defined Collins’ creationism as something to the likes of denying that bio-organism’s change. Yet, Francis Collins has his own views on creation and evolution and could not easily be forced into the “Creation scientist” nor “Intelligent Design theorist” mold. In fact, and for example, Jonathan Wells (the black listed biologist) wrote a review of Collins’ book “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” which is entitled “Darwin of the Gaps” and takes Collins to task on various points.
My only point in writing this post is not note that it is simply fascinating to note just how vitriolic the “news” is on this point-and I am not even mentioning individual websites and blogs.
Atheism is Dead has previously made reference to Francis Collins in the following posts:
The New Atheists on Francis Collins – Soteriological Chain of Causation
John Horgan and Francis Collins – The Scientist as Believer
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Also, of interest may be, P.Z. Myers: Christianity is Bad; Crimes Against Humanity are Very Very Good