Science is Only Truth When
its Convenient
NIH's Dr. Francis Collins Feels Evolution and Religion Not
Mutually Exclusive
by Warner Todd Huston 26 Jan 2014,
3:21 PM PDT
In a recent interview, Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH),
said that he didn't think that there was necessarily any
"discordance" between science – particularly the theory of evolution – and religion.
Collins was part of a discussion
with HuffPost Live at Davos in which he noted that there is uneasiness over the
theory of evolution in the US
among some religious people, but that he doesn't think there should be.
"For me, somebody who is a
'show me the data' kind of scientist, but also a believer [in God], I don't see
a discordance there. In fact it enriches my experience, each basically
harmonized with the other. It gives you a view of life that is actually quite
satisfying, and not in any way in conflict," Collins said.
Collins went on to say that there
is "uneasiness" over aspects of science, "particularly
evolution," because some religious people feel that science conflicts with
their "sense of how we all came to be." This conflict doesn't need to
exist, Collins said.
"But you know, if you are a
believer in God, it's hard to imagine that God would somehow put this
incontrovertible evidence in front of us about our relationship to other living
organisms and expect us to disbelieve it. I mean, that doesn't make sense at all.
So as soon as you kind of get over the anxiety about the whole thing, it
actually adds to your sense of awe about this amazing universe that we live in,
it doesn't subtract from it at all."
Like many other religious people,
Collins is a believer in what is often called "theistic evolution,"
the idea that God himself created the process of evolution. This idea holds
that religion is not at all incompatible with the efforts of science to
describe how life evolved on the Earth.
Collins isn't alone. On its
website, the National
Center for Science
Education recently re-posted a 1997 report that found that many scientists see
God's hand in evolution.
Francis S. Collins
Francis S.
Collins was a director at the National
Human Genome Research Institute, is a director at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, and a director at
the National Institutes of Health.
Note: Human genome.
Evolution
Comparative genomics studies of
mammalian genomes suggest that approximately 5% of the human genome has been
conserved by evolution since the divergence of extant lineages approximately
200 million years ago, containing the vast majority of genes.
Kurt
L. Schmoke was a director at the Foundation
for the National Institutes of Health, and an Oxford University
Rhodes scholar.
Ruth
Padel is a professor at Oxford
University, and Charles Darwin’s great-great-granddaughter.
Charles Darwin
is Ruth Padel’s great-great-grandfather,
and a English naturalist whose theory of evolution
by natural selection became the foundation of modern evolutionary studies.
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin, in full Charles
Robert Darwin (born February 12, 1809,
Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England—died April 19, 1882, Downe, Kent), English
naturalist whose theory of evolution by natural selection became the foundation
of modern evolutionary studies. An affable country gentleman, Darwin at first
shocked religious Victorian society by suggesting that animals and humans shared
a common ancestry. However, his nonreligious biology appealed to the rising
class of professional scientists, and by the time of his death evolutionary
imagery had spread through all of science, literature, and politics. Darwin,
himself an agnostic, was accorded the ultimate British accolade of burial in
Westminster Abbey, London.
Ezekiel Emanuel
was a founding chair of the Department of Bioethics for the National Institutes of Health, the health
care policy adviser for the Barack Obama
administration, and is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
George
Soros was a supporter for the Center
for American Progress, the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Center for American Progress, and the Climate Reality Project.
Carol M. Browner
is a senior fellow, director for the Center
for American Progress, was a director at the Climate Reality Project, and the energy czar for the Barack Obama administration.
Albert
A. Gore Jr. is the chairman for the Climate
Reality Project, and the narrator-host for An Inconvenient Truth.
Rahm
I. Emanuel is Ezekiel Emanuel’s brother, the Chicago (IL) mayor, a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and was the White House chief of staff
for the Barack Obama administration.
Barack
Obama is the president for the Barack
Obama administration, and was an intern at Sidley Austin LLP.
Newton
N. Minow is a senior counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP, and a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago.
R.
Eden Martin is counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP, and the president of the Commercial
Club of Chicago.
Commercial Club of Chicago,
Members Directory A-Z (Past Research)
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Penny S. Pritzker
is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago,
and a member of the President's Council
on Jobs and Competitiveness.
Eric
S. Lander was a member of the President's
Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and a principal leader for the U.S. Human Genome Project.
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