Collins Resigns, Again

Francis Collins, new director of the National Institutes of Health, has stepped down from leading the BioLogos Foundation, launched just last spring to harmonize Christian faith with mainstream science, including evolution. Last year he resigned as director of the Human Genome Project.

Here's an excerpt from Sarah Pulliam's CT Politics Blog post:

"I want to reassure everyone I am here to lead the NIH as best I can, as a scientist," Collins said, noting concerns.

The author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief has been outspoken about his faith in the past.

''The NIH director needs to focus on science,'' Collins told the Associated Press on Monday. ''I have no religious agenda for the NIH.''

Why does Collins, an outstanding scientist, feel he has to reassure people? And how does this move harmonize with keeping together faith and science? Perhaps there was pressure for the former director of the Human Genome Project to do so, but I wasn't aware there was a religious test to hold any position in the Obama administration.

If this were the policy at the dawn of modern science, we would not have modern science, because many of the great early scientists were Christians.