I'm not one of the more fundamentalist types in the broad science community who had any issue with Francis Collins leading the NIH. His credentials are impeccable and the same people who were backflipping with glee over Stephen Chu as Energy Secretary despite his weird militancy about global warming seemed to mind that Collins liked to go to church. Not an issue for me, I was more worried about his overselling of personalized medicine.
If anything, I think Collins being an important science figure despite personal beliefs contrarian to 60% of scientists is a real endorsement of tolerance and diversity - something everyone claims to want , though most often they mean only for people they like.
Young people, and those with too much time on their hands, want to live in important times so they exaggerate the impact of minor things, like a religious Collins working for Obama, a guy who wasn't sure vaccines don't cause autism even last year - Collins is obviously only going to add to that kind of knowledge base.
There's no question a fundamentalist culture (religious or atheist) is a detriment to science - but we don't live in one, not even close; sorry, neo-atheists who think we are all a step away from forced Bible readings, and religious cranks who think Obama will institute forced gay porn zones.
But some people do live in a fundamentalist society and here is an example of it going to a weird place; namely a scientist claiming that Neil Armstrong proved that Mecca was the actual center of the world - and also that radiation emits from it, according to something they saw on the Web one time.
Why Religion And Science Rarely Mix Well
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