A fair introduction of Francis Collins and Richard Dawkins
This addendum is simply to present a fair and balanced introduction for the two men who are debating in the God versus Science article. Both of these summations are from that well-beloved online resource, ha ha, Wikipedia! (The reader will note that Dawkins is described as a scientist, but that is of course a matter of viewpoint. Dawkins has studied, opinined, and written about scientific fields of study, especially concerning genetics and origins. Only Dr. Collins is actually degreed in a scientific field and working in an actual field of science.)
Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941) is an eminent British ethologist, evolutionary scientist, and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.
Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene which popularised the gene-centric view of evolution and introduced the term meme into the lexicon, thereby helping to found the field of memetics. In 1982, he made a major contribution to the science of evolution with the theory, presented in his widely cited book The Extended Phenotype,[1] that phenotypic effects are not limited to an organism's body but can stretch far into the environment, including into the bodies of other organisms. He has since written several best-selling popular books on evolution, and has appeared in a number of television and radio programmes on evolutionary biology, creationism, and religion.
Dawkins is an outspoken atheist, humanist, and sceptic, and is a prominent member of the Brights movement. In a play on Thomas Huxley's epithet "Darwin's bulldog", Dawkins' impassioned defence of Darwinian evolution has earned him the appellation "Darwin's rottweiler".
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Francis S. Collins (born April 14, 1950), M.D., Ph.D., is a physician-geneticist, noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes, and his leadership of the Human Genome Project (HGP). He is director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).
As head of NHGRI, Collins has overseen the HGP, the multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, international effort to map and sequence all of the human DNA and then determine aspects of its function. The goal of the effort is to improve human health.
With Collins at the helm, the HGP has attained several milestones, while running ahead of schedule and under budget. A working draft of the human genome was announced in June 2000, and an initial analysis was published in February 2001. HGP scientists continued to work toward finishing the sequence of all three billion base pairs by 2003, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Watson and Crick's seminal publication of the structure of DNA.
Collins's commitment to free, rapid access to genomic information helped to make all data immediately available to the worldwide scientific community. With these data sets of DNA sequence and variation in hand, researchers around the globe work on the process of understanding the connection between genes and disease. Collins envisions as a new era of individualized, prevention-oriented medicine.
Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941) is an eminent British ethologist, evolutionary scientist, and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.
Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene which popularised the gene-centric view of evolution and introduced the term meme into the lexicon, thereby helping to found the field of memetics. In 1982, he made a major contribution to the science of evolution with the theory, presented in his widely cited book The Extended Phenotype,[1] that phenotypic effects are not limited to an organism's body but can stretch far into the environment, including into the bodies of other organisms. He has since written several best-selling popular books on evolution, and has appeared in a number of television and radio programmes on evolutionary biology, creationism, and religion.
Dawkins is an outspoken atheist, humanist, and sceptic, and is a prominent member of the Brights movement. In a play on Thomas Huxley's epithet "Darwin's bulldog", Dawkins' impassioned defence of Darwinian evolution has earned him the appellation "Darwin's rottweiler".
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Francis S. Collins (born April 14, 1950), M.D., Ph.D., is a physician-geneticist, noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes, and his leadership of the Human Genome Project (HGP). He is director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).
As head of NHGRI, Collins has overseen the HGP, the multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, international effort to map and sequence all of the human DNA and then determine aspects of its function. The goal of the effort is to improve human health.
With Collins at the helm, the HGP has attained several milestones, while running ahead of schedule and under budget. A working draft of the human genome was announced in June 2000, and an initial analysis was published in February 2001. HGP scientists continued to work toward finishing the sequence of all three billion base pairs by 2003, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Watson and Crick's seminal publication of the structure of DNA.
Collins's commitment to free, rapid access to genomic information helped to make all data immediately available to the worldwide scientific community. With these data sets of DNA sequence and variation in hand, researchers around the globe work on the process of understanding the connection between genes and disease. Collins envisions as a new era of individualized, prevention-oriented medicine.