Article: Creation/Evolution - Creation/Evolution Debate

The U.S. Senate on Friday confirmed prominent geneticist Francis S. Collins as the new director of the National Institutes of Health. With unanimous Senate approval, Collins, who is best known for leading the Human Genome Project, has become the NIH’s 16th director. The NIH is the world’s largest biomedical organization, comprising of 27 institutes and research centers that together employs about 18,000 individuals. Its research program, which has an annual budget of $29.5 billion, is only second to the Department of Defense.

But aside from his scientific prowess, Collins is well known for his openness about his Christian faith. He has spoken at countless universities and churches across the nation about the compatibility between science and religion, including the consistency between the Bible’s creation story and evolution.

Collins has strongly criticized fundamentalist teachings that say you have to either choose faith or science, especially on the subject of evolution. Many young Christian scientists, he has said, feel that science and their faith are in complete conflict when they are not.

“There is simply no way to come up with an explanation of the earth being two thousand years old without basically throwing out all the basic principles of cosmology, theology, chemistry, physics and biology,” said Collins, who believes evolution is part of God’s creation process, during a lecture at the famed Washington National Cathedral in 2007