God and genetics

In a February 2006 blog, I mused about the reversal of relationship between science and religion. This reversal is particularly striking in biology, long-considered as a bastion of atheism, in the aftermath of the triumphal progress of Darwinism. Yet, with the advent and progress of genetics many scientists wonder about the beauty and the intricacy of basic biological structures such as DNA and about the origins of life, whose advent simply cannot be explained by laws of probability and random permutations of matter.  I noted that many geneticists are deeply religious. This last remark was based on my personal experience in the Polish genetic cancer detection project.
It looks like my experience is not an isolated case. According to press reports, Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute and the leader of one of the two teams that mapped the human genome, has written a book about science and religion claiming that there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man closer to God. Entitled The Language of God, the book is to be published in September. According to Collins, who has speaking on the topic for several years: “One of the great tragedies of our time is this impression that has been created that science and religion have to be at war, […] I don’t see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past 20 years.”
For Collins, unravelling the human genome allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God. […] When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”

I am looking forward to reading his book. Even more, I am awaiting with great interest to reactions and comments of his peers and other scientists.