Science, faith fuel researcher’s vaccine quest
HE’S MODELLED A FORM OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP THAT’S INSPIRING. — SPEER
Most readers may not know who Francis Collins is. But right now he’s one of the most important people in the world. He’s a path-breaking scientist overseeing a multi- organization effort to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus. He’s also a Christian.
Dr. Collins’ life and career have followed a parallel path of religious and scientific inquiry. He’s become a leader in both spheres. And in so doing he’s modelled a form of servant leadership that’s inspiring.
Collins is a physician-geneticist who has led the National Institutes of Health, the U. S. government agency responsible for biomedical and public health research, since 2009. It’s in this role that he’s now co- ordinating a massive effort involving 18 pharmaceutical companies and various government agencies to develop a coronavirus vaccine. The partnership, called Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines ( or ACTIV for short), is making real progress and could have a vaccine ready for use as early as the first quarter of 2021.
But that may not even be Collins’ greatest scientific endeavour. Previously, as the head of the Human Genome Project, he led the effort to map the human genome — the full sequence of three billion DNA letters in the human blueprint. It was an audacious undertaking involving an international research consortium and nearly $ 3 billion over 13 years. There were plenty of naysayers when the project was launched but Collins and his team ultimately did it early and underbudget. The result has been described as “one of the biggest medical breakthroughs in the modern age.”
The project’s insights are now helping to launch a new era of precision medicine in which researchers and medical providers can customize treatment for individual patients. They’re also shedding new light on human well- being and the nature and possibilities of the human species. For his personal contribution, Collins is widely regarded as “one of the greatest scientific minds of our time.”
But he isn’t just a scientific leader. Collins is a self-described “serious Christian” who has committed himself to building bridges between the worlds of religion and science. In interviews, speeches, and his best- selling book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, he’s a powerful proponent of the mutuality between reason and faith.
It wasn’t always the case. Collins was an atheist who was “very happy with the idea that God did not exist” into his late 20s. He came to faith as a medical resident after a formative encounter with a dying patient and subsequently reading C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity.
In his telling, Collins realized that there were questions — like “why is there something instead of nothing?” or “what was before the Big Bang?” or “What is beauty all about?” — that science couldn’t answer for him. He describes a feeling of deep discomfort as he reluctantly came to accept that there was something beyond the natural world. The logical conclusion to his earnest pursuit of truth was a new-found faith. And he has never looked back.
Collins has since invested considerable professional capital in talking about his faith and its relationship to his scientific work. He even founded an organization, Biologos, to facilitate exchange between religious and scientific leaders and to advance a shared understanding of how faith and science can be complementary once their proper domains are understood and respected.
Not everyone, of course, is receptive to Collins’ message about the harmony of faith and science. Gov. Gen. Julie Payette, for instance, has spoken dismissively about those who believe in a divine role in the origins of the universe. But her overwhelming confidence that a “random process” explains the ultimate question about our existence is itself an expression of faith. The difference is she just lacks the self-awareness to see it.
Collins, by contrast, is the first to recognize that his spiritual beliefs aren’t merely the product of rationality. At some point you need faith. It ultimately has to be more theological than intellectual as he readily observes.
And this gets to the heart of Collins’ philosophy. Faith and science are compatible because they’re seeking answers to different questions. Faith is concerned with moral truths. Science is concerned with laws of nature. One sets its focus on the spiritual world; the other on the material world. Collins would say these different lines of inquiry are in “joyful harmony.”
Last month he was awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize for his scientific accomplishments and bridge building between the scientific and faith communities. The award ceremony is on hold until the pandemic subsides. But with Collins leading the search for a vaccine, it may take place sooner than the organizers anticipate. He’s a man on a mission. And he’s a man of faith.