President Obama has nominated Francis Collins to be director of the National Institute of Health. Collins led the project to sequence human DNA. He is an outspoken evangelical, though he is also a theistic evolutionist. Click the link for an interesting discussion of his ideas and the controversy he elicits from all sides.
Then again, President Obama’s nomination for the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, John Holdren, has written a book, entitled Ecoscience back in 1977, in which he argues for the following:
— Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
— The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
— Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
— People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
— A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.
Mollie Hemingway, to whom I am indebted for this information, asks, after some very interesting discussion, why is the media presenting Francis Collins as a controversial pick for being an evangelical Christian (though one who is pro-evolution, pro-stem cell research, and pro-abortion) but not John Holdren?
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I knew it! It IS the Utah water! We’ve got kids galore! God be praised for just a little too much of the scientific antifederalist antidote in the tap water.
Seriously though, Holden’s views aren’t just controversial, their downright terrorizing.
Reason # 1,243,526 why the United States should have nothing to do with nation-building anywhere.
How can you be an outspoken evangelical and for forced abortions?? Do labels mean ANYTHING??
Regarding Collins: If all sides are against you, it means you’re doing something right.
Lots of Christians, including the Catholic Church, believe(s) in theistic evolution.
Collins is “controversial” because he believes that science and faith are compatible and can inform each other. See his website on the subject: http://www.biologos.org/
This is distinct from Steven Jay Gould’s concept of NOMA – non-overlapping magisteria.
Collins is thoughtful; Holdren appears to be dangerous.
Ruthie – the outspoken evangelical (Collins) and the person for forced abortions (Holdren) are two different men.
There is some interesting framing here, as in the question, “why is the media presenting Francis Collins as a controversial pick for being an evangelical Christian?” This seems to be a matter of blaming the media for reporting that other people, notably other scientists, consider him a controversial pick for that reason. The implication being that if the media reports criticisms of a person, that the media then itself believes those criticisms, and therefore, in order to remain unbiased, the media should refrain from reporting criticisms in the future. I don’t buy it. Of course, the New York Times article that Ms. Hemingway links to spends only one paragraph describing objections to Collins’s religious beliefs, and many more discussing his leadership of the Human Genome Project. So if the Times can be accused (by Ms. Hemingway) of burying the objections to Holdren’s book/ideas, then one could also argue they’d done the same for Collins. The only difference is the location of the paragraph in question, which is rather nit-picky.
What’s more interesting to me is how, perhaps due to the framing presented here, everyone seems to be leaping to Collins’s defense and, of course, slamming Holdren. So what does Collins believe? Well, according the Slate article you link to:
I’d bet that, in most other contexts, we’d be tearing this guy down for his beliefs, and questioning the label “evangelical”. Certainly if he were running for political office. Oh, but we’re comparing him to Holdren, so Collins gets not only a pass, but praise.
So what about Holdren’s belifs, as summed up in a 32-year-old book? Did anyone bother to read all the way to the end of that ZombieTime.com link (I didn’t, but I skipped there)? Well, there’s this paragraph, taken from a Washington Times article:
There’s also this quote from the Catholic News Agency:
In short, I’m not sure Collins is such a laudable saint himself, though I’m glad he professes faith in Jesus, even if it doesn’t always seem to affect his beliefs regarding science. And I’m not sure what Holdren believes today, though it seems to be less something less or other than what can be quoted from the 32-year-old book he co-authored.
He once put his name to such ideas is scary enough for me to not entrust him with anything on a national level. Why this nut should be positioned to represent the entire nation in regards to anything, I’ll never know. You are much more trusting in men than I am, tODD, that’s for sure.