Collins; The Language Of God; A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief.pdf

THE

LANGUAGE

OF GOD

A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

FRANCIS S. COLLINS

Free Press

N e w Y o r k London Toronto Sydney

JUL 7 2006

INTRODUCTION

millennium, humankind crossed a bridge into a mo-

mentous new era. An announcement beamed around

the world, highlighted in virtually all major newspapers, trum-

peted that the first draft of the human genome, our own in-

struction book, had been assembled.

The human genome consists of all the DNA of our species,

the hereditary code of life. This newly revealed text was 3 bil-

lion letters long, and written in a strange and cryptographic

four-letter code. Such is the amazing complexity of the infor-

mation carried within each cell of the human body, that a live

reading of that code at a rate of one letter per second would

take thirty-one years, even if reading continued day and night.

Printing these letters out in regular font size on normal bond

O N A WARM SUMMER DAY just six months into the new

The Language of God

paper and binding them all together would result in a tower the

height of the Washington Monument. For the first time on that

summer morning this amazing script, carrying within it all of

the instructions for building a human being, was available to

the world.

As the leader of the international Human Genome Project,

which had labored mightily over more than a decade to reveal

this DNA sequence, I stood beside President Bill Clinton in the

East Room of the White House, along with Craig Venter, the

leader of a competing private sector enterprise. Prime Minister

Tony Blair was connected to the event by satellite, and celebra-

tions were occurring simultaneously in many parts of the world.

Clinton's speech began by comparing this human sequence

map to the map that Meriwether Lewis had unfolded in front of

President Thomas Jefferson in that very room nearly two hun-

dred years earlier. Clinton said, "Without a doubt, this is the

most important, most wondrous map ever produced by hu-

mankind." But the part of his speech that most attracted public

attention jumped from the scientific perspective to the spiritual.

"Today," he said, "we are learning the language in which God

created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity,

the beauty, and the wonder of God's most divine and sacred

gift."

Was I, a rigorously trained scientist, taken aback at such a

blatantly religious reference by the leader of the free world at a

moment such as this? Was I tempted to scowl or look at the

floor in embarrassment? No, not at all. In fact I had worked

closely with the president's speechwriter in the frantic days just

prior to this announcement, and had strongly endorsed the in-

INTRODUCTION

elusion of this paragraph. When it came time for me to add a

few words of my own, I echoed this sentiment: "It's a happy day

for the world. It is humbling for me, and awe-inspiring, to real-

ize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction

book, previously known only to God."

What was going on here? Why would a president and a sci-

entist, charged with announcing a milestone in biology and

medicine, feel compelled to invoke a connection with God?

Aren't the scientific and spiritual worldviews antithetical, or

shouldn't they at least avoid appearing in the East Room to-

gether? What were the reasons for invoking God in these two

speeches? Was this poetry? Hypocrisy? A cynical attempt to

curry favor from believers, or to disarm those who might criti-

cize this study of the human genome as reducing humankind to

machinery? No. Not for me. Quite the contrary, for me the expe-

rience of sequencing the human genome, and uncovering this

most remarkable of all texts, was both a stunning scientific

achievement and an occasion of worship.

Many will be puzzled by these sentiments, assuming that a

rigorous scientist could not also be a serious believer in a tran-

scendent God. This book aims to dispel that notion, by arguing

that belief in God can be an entirely rational choice, and that

the principles of faith are, in fact, complementary with the prin-

ciples of science.

This potential synthesis of the scientific and spiritual world-

views is assumed by many in modern times to be an impossibil-

ity, rather like trying to force the two poles of a magnet together

into the same spot. Despite that impression, however, many

Americans seem interested in incorporating the validity of both

The Language of God

of these worldviews into their daily lives. Recent polls confirm

that 93 percent of Americans profess some form of belief in

God; yet most of them also drive cars, use electricity, and pay

attention to weather reports, apparently assuming that the sci-

ence undergirding these phenomena is generally trustworthy.

And what about spiritual belief amongst scientists? This is

actually more prevalent than many realize. In 1916, researchers

asked biologists, physicists, and mathematicians whether they

believed in a God who actively communicates with humankind

and to whom one may pray in expectation of receiving an an-

swer. About 40 percent answered in the affirmative. In 1997,

the same survey was repeated verbatim—and to the surprise of

the researchers, the percentage remained very nearly the same.

So perhaps the "battle" between science and religion is not

as polarized as it seems? Unfortunately, the evidence of poten-

tial harmony is often overshadowed by the high-decibel pro-

nouncements of those who occupy the poles of the debate.

Bombs are definitely being thrown from both sides. For exam-

ple, essentially discrediting the spiritual beliefs of 40 percent of

his colleagues as sentimental nonsense, the prominent evolu-

tionist Richard Dawkins has emerged as the leading spokesper-

son for the point of view that a belief in evolution demands

atheism. Among his many eye-popping statements: "Faith is the

great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and

evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps be-

cause of, the lack of evidence. . . . Faith, being belief that isn't

based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion.'"

On the other side, certain religious fundamentalists attack

science as dangerous and untrustworthy, and point to a literal

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