Francis Collins on Big Think

Francis Collins, director of the Nation Institute of Health, sat down for an interview with Big Think.  Most notably, Collins led the American arm of the Human Genome Project and also wrote a book called The Language of God.  As a scientists and a Christian, he has clearly found a way to reconcile science and religion in his own life.


Big Think interviews people by sitting them in front of a white screen and removing the interviewer from the equation.  In this case, they asked Francis Collins why it is so difficult for scientists to believe in God.





Science takes on the difficult task of describing how the natural world works.  Religion has taken on those questions, but focuses more on how to live your life and bigger questions.  Sometimes, we get wrapped up in Genesis 1 as a description of the beginning of Earth.  I tend to think of it as the best explanation a nomadic tribe 5,000 years ago could have understood.  While it described the world for them, we have made enormous strides in our understanding.  Thankfully, Genesis offers alternative readings, most notably that we are to be good stewards of the Earth.