A Possibly Unpopular Opinion On Francis Collins

[Dean]

I'm sure this has been dealt with in some depth in the past, but I just thought I'd hop on on the bandwagon and ask y'all for some thoughts on this ...

I imagine the vast majority of you will already know who Francis Collins is and if not, you can always click the Wikipedia link ...

Personally, my opinion of him has radically declined in the past few years, despite his scientific legacy, e.g. his directing of the Human Genome Project and alike. But his views on e.g. religion sometimes make me shudder, and I think it has adversely effected his science. Well, I guess it's fairly typical for professionally educated members of society who happen to be devoutly religious to boldly venture WAY beyond the evidence, and make absurd statements about fields which have no apparent connection to science, e.g. theology in this case. Sort of ironic, isn't it? The more a religiously devoted person comes to know about a particular field, e.g. biology, the more they will tend to try to manipulate the science to fit within the context of their religious beliefs.

Collins is a textbook example of this. And as much as I hate to say it, this diaphanously flawed kind of non-critical thinking marks Collins out as a mediocre scientist for me. Not , or not any longer , comparable to these two:

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  (Left) Sir. David Attenborough (1926-present) , (Right) Richard Dawkins (1941-present)

And if you need any convincing of Collins's BS, then I would direct you to his fellow biologists who have almost universally panned him for his views. To list only a few examples:

From P. Z. Meyers:

I've been wrestling with how to respond to the imminent appointment of Francis Collins to the NIH, and it's tough. The problem is that he has excellent qualifications for the position of chief paper-pusher and technician-wrangler, but that his position on religion is just plain weird. He's a lovable dufus with great organizational skills whose grasp of the principles of science is superficial.

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• ["¦] I have some concern that he has a mindset that may not promote the diversity of scientific research , he represents a very narrow, gene-jockey style of research, which is valuable and does churn out lots of data, but I've often found exhibits a worrisome lack of understanding of the big picture of biology. ["¦]
  
  
• He doesn't understand evolution. He has said that he thinks humans are no longer evolving, that junk DNA is functional, and he can't understand how altruism could have evolved. ["¦]

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• His website, Biologos, is an embarrassment of poor reasoning and silly christian apologetics. It's awful. His logic is a joke, and all it really shows is that Collins is a man blinded by faith to the absurdities of his convictions. ["¦]

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(emphasis mine) "Collins gets panned almost everywhere", P. Z. Meyers @Pharyngula, July 11th 2009

Link: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/07/collins_gets_panned_almost_eve.php

And don't even get me started on his BioLogos website ...

From Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution Is True" Blog:

["¦] When I see stuff like this, I realize that there is no limit to how tortuously the human mind can twist itself into knots to make everything in the world comport with a ludicrous faith. It's positively Orwellian how they can turn horror and death into manifestations of God's love. Haven't they ever realized that it's a lot easier to assume no god at all? Or how stupid they look when they talk like this?

Jerry Coyne, 2011 http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/more-theodicy/

... in reference to a -- in his words -- LOLzworthy video produced by BioLogos:

^^ Note that the Pastor is this video, admits that evolution necessitates a terrible level of suffering and death, and waste, and then repeats his statement, qualifying it with the phrase "apparent" ... AND he also goes on to admit that it has been in his words a "huge stumbling block for Christians" ... I've also taken a very critical look at some of Collins' writing in which he discusses this subject. It's usually unintentionally hilarious, and even comes across as desperate at some points.

Proclaiming death and destruction to be a part of "His Plan"â„¢, etc. It's positively horrifying, in my opinion. But I should add that this IS only my view. I'd like to know if anyone else has any particular opinion regarding this topic, and please do say so in replies. I don't know if it's just me who finds this position to be so contemptible.

Thoughts?

 

[Squawk]

Pretty much agree entirely. I consider Francis Collins to be another example of the power of faith, in the same mould as Kurt Wise. Fortunately Collins isn't a creationist

 

[Frenger]

Correct me if I'm wrong but is Francis Collins the chap who went hiking and saw a waterfall split into three, fell to his knees and then decided to except Jesus Christ because apparetly it looked like the trinity.

If it's him, he's a maniac.

 

[Laurens]

I don't have much of an opinion of him really, other than that he serves as a good example to refute creationists claims that evolution is equivalent to atheism...

 

[Dean]

I don't have much of an opinion of him really, other than that he serves as a good example to refute creationists claims that evolution is equivalent to atheism...

Yes, though I cannot avoid the fact that almost every single one of the arguments put forward by his "compatiblist" crowd are frankly comical.

From the vid:
"... the amount of death and waste that evolution requires ... this realization of how death is part of the character of god -- that it is his supreme expression of love in act of death ... we see an analogy from [Christ] to evolution ..."

My immediate reaction: :lol:

And I could give you dozens of other examples.