Francis Collins stands at the very summit of the scientific community. He successfully led the massive effort to map the entire human genome, bringing the project to completion ahead of time and under budget. He now serves as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), having been nominated by President Barack Obama last summer. He oversees one of the largest research budgets in the world and, armed with a Ph.D., a medical degree, and a long list of accomplishments, is one of the most influential scientists of the last 100 years.
Thus, you might think that the scientific world would have celebrated the elevation of Dr. Collins to the NIH. Not so. Harvard’s Steven Pinker declared that Collins is “an advocate of profoundly anti-scientific beliefs.” Other leading scientists said far worse. Why? Keep Reading