Francis Collins

Life

Collins was born in 1950 in Staunton, Virginia. His parents met in graduate school at Yale University. His father taught drama at the college level, and his mother wrote plays. He grew up on a farm and was educated at home until about the sixth grade. His family was not especially religious, and as a young man he considered himself an atheist. After graduating from the University of Virginia, he earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Yale University and an M.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In his twenties he concluded that atheism could not answer questions about the meaning of life, and he embraced the Christian faith. American media describe him as an evangelical Christian.

Work and Achievements

While at the University of Michigan, Collins became known for identifying the genes responsible for hereditary diseases. His best-known work includes genetic research on conditions such as cystic fibrosis and neurofibromatosis. In 1993 he succeeded James Watson as head of the Human Genome Project, an international research effort to read the entire human genetic code. In June 2000 he stood alongside President Bill Clinton when the completion of a draft of the genome was announced. The project was completed in 2003. From 2009 to 2021 he served as director of the National Institutes of Health under three administrations: those of Obama, Trump, and Biden. In 2022 he served for several months as acting science adviser to the president. In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI appointed him a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

The Language of God, published in 2006, became a New York Times bestseller. In the book he rejects both young-earth creationism and intelligent design. Instead, he advocates theistic evolution, the view that God used evolution as the means of creating life. He called this view "BioLogos," combining bios (life) and logos (word). In November 2007 he founded a foundation of the same name. He stepped down as the foundation's president when he became director of the NIH, and since retiring from the NIH he has served as a senior fellow of the foundation. In 2020 he received the Templeton Prize in recognition of his efforts to integrate faith and reason.

Assessment

Supporters credit him with publicly professing his faith while holding one of the highest leadership positions in the scientific community. In their view, his example demonstrates that science and faith need not be in conflict. Collins himself holds that evolution explains the processes of life well, but he maintains that the origin of the natural laws underlying those processes remains an open question.

He has also drawn criticism. In a column, a researcher with the Creation Science Mission argued that theistic evolution places the authority of science above the authority of the Bible. The researcher also contended that Genesis 1 is a historical record written in prose, yet theistic evolution reads it as poetry or legend. An article from the Christian Research Institute (CRI) in the United States criticized BioLogos for advocating evolution to the church after receiving more than $8.7 million in funding from the Templeton Foundation. The article also faulted the organization for hastily accepting the scientific "consensus." Criticism also came from the opposite side: some in the scientific community reportedly objected when he received the Templeton Prize.