First Word quotes American Heart Association President Clyde Yancy as saying that Collins' real advantage "is the ability to translate deep and complex science to the lay population...in a meaningful way that allows it to be tangible and actionable."
Translation, good. But what about personal beliefs? Will his pro-religion stance play a role as director of a major source of our nation's research funding?Wall Street Journal's Health Blog says Collins is "a devout Christian who doesn't see a conflict between religion and science." (Ironically, that statement followed a sentence on former NIH director Zerhouni's ban on conflicts of interest in researchers who receive NIH funding.).
What about Collins' work at BioLogos? The group is "led by a team of scientists who believe in God and are committed to promoting a perspective of the origins of life that is both theologically and scientifically sound." And what about his role as Senior Fellow for The Trinity Forum (albeit in a private capacity)?
Are these conflicts of interest? Will they affect his ability to direct objectively? What do you think?
All of this recent talk about Collins' religious beliefs, especially the attacks by PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne, give the mistaken impression that religious beliefs are a big issue within the professional science community. They aren't - in general, few people really care about their colleagues' religious beliefs, unless those beliefs support organized pseudoscience attacks on science, like intelligent design. (And Collins certainly does not support intelligent design.) Collins is a highly qualified pick for NIH director.
And everyone with questions should follow the link above to Biologos. What's there is a pretty standard take on science and theism by people who don't reject science. Like I've said before, I'm not a believer myself, but I think the following is a fairly uncontroversial theistic effort to reconcile the science of prebiotic evolution with belief in God:
If more religious believers adopted that stance, we'd be in much better shape. Biologos is doing science a service.