Sir Francis Collins, a renowned geneticist and former director of the Human Genome Project has a lot to offer to those who seek a reconciliation between science and religion. Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God.” His book, The Language of God, will reopen the age-old debate about the relationship between science and faith. For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God.”
“When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along.
“When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”
Collins joins a line of scientists whose research deepened their belief in God. Isaac Newton, whose discovery of the laws of gravity reshaped our understanding of the universe, said: “This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.”
Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical patients.
“They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going to escape, and yet instead of rallying against God they seemed to lean on their faith as a source of great comfort and reassurance,” he said. “That was interesting, puzzling, and unsettling.”
On July 9, 2009, the current President of USA, Barrack Obama nominated Francis Collins to be the head of the National Institutes of Health(NIH), USA, one of the most important medical research agencies.
Note from the editor – Francis Collins has some controversial views on what he calls “Theistic Evolution.” Back to Godhead does not agree with these views. Here, we wish only to bring to your notice a leading modern-day scientist whose research has led him not to deny God but to accept God.