Next chapter: Ex-NIH head Francis Collins works to bridge the country's divides

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Next chapter: Ex-NIH head Francis Collins works to bridge the country's divides

Transcript¹

NPR's Rachel Martin talks to Dr. Francis Collins about how his faith is helping² inform part of his next role: he wants to use science, religion and above all empathy to try to bring people together.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

After two years helping lead America's fight against COVID-19, Dr. Francis Collins is diagnosing a different kind of public health crisis.

FRANCIS COLLINS: The culture wars are literally³ killing⁴ people - because we've lost that sense of what our greatest calling is, which is the truth, goodness and beauty - those three transcendentals that are supposed to characterize us - all three of which seem to be frayed⁵.

MARTIN: Collins recently stepped down as the director of the National Institutes of Health. Now he runs a research lab focused on the scientific mysteries of diabetes⁶ and aging. Francis Collins is also a Christian⁷ who's had to make peace with what he can prove and what he can't. And he wants to use science, religion and, above all, empathy to try and bring people together in this moment. To know how he got here, let's go back to when Collins was a graduate student and an avowed⁸ atheist⁹.

COLLINS: I had no use for anybody who wanted to talk about something you couldn't measure in the science lab.

MARTIN: Why?

COLLINS: I think it was the sort of thing that would clear the seminar room in a hurry, (laughter) if you raised a question about God. Like, oh, that doesn't belong here. Didn't you realize that's not the conversation we're supposed to have? So people got the message and didn't. And I was happy not to have that conversation 'cause I was uncomfortable by it and thought it was a waste of time.

MARTIN: So how in the world did that begin to change for you?

COLLINS: It was medical school. It was that third year of medical school, where you're not in the classroom anymore. You're on the hospital wards¹⁰. You're sitting at the bedside of good North Carolina people whose lives are coming to an end, sometimes with a great deal of pain and suffering. And you're realizing your medical tools are inadequate¹¹ to actually help them very much. And I had a moment where a patient of mine, who I'd gotten kind of attached to - an elderly woman kind of like my grandmother - who shared her faith with me and then turned to me one afternoon and said, you know, Doctor, I've told you about my beliefs, and you haven't said anything. What do you believe? What do you believe? Nobody ever quite asked me that question. And, Rachel, at that moment, I realized, I have no idea. I have settled on atheism¹² because it was the answer I was most comfortable with, and it meant I didn't really have to look into this. But I'm a scientist. I'm not supposed to make big decisions without looking at evidence. I've got to look into it.

MARTIN: So how does an avowed atheist scientist go about interrogating¹³ the existence of God?

COLLINS: What helped me most was a pastor¹⁴ down the street from me who listened to all of my blasphemous¹⁵ questions about how there could possibly be a loving God when the world was in such trouble and suggested that I might want to read a small book on his shelf. The book was "Mere¹⁶ Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. And Lewis, bit by bit, who seemed to be reading my mind, would address each one of those and then point out why atheism was actually the least rational of the choices and why belief ultimately made a lot more sense. And I never have encountered a conflict between what I know as a Christian and what I know as a scientist. I have to be careful about which kind of question is being asked. If it's about, you know, how does the Golgi apparatus¹⁷ of the cell work? - that's a scientific question. If it's a question about, why am I here? - well, science isn't helping me very much with that. But I can ask both those questions on any given day, and I'm not having a wall around them.

MARTIN: I wonder if you've seen this. I have just noticed in my own life in conversations with some evangelical Christians¹⁸ I know. The tendency has been to say about a variety of things, this is God's will - right? - whether we're talking about climate change or whether we're talking about a global pandemic, that any attempt to disrupt that kind of predestined divine plan is against God's will. Have you heard that?

COLLINS: Oh, yeah.

MARTIN: And how do you go about countering it?

COLLINS: And those are my people. I am an evangelical Christian. And I must say it is heartbreaking to see the ways in which this divide between science and faith has particularly hit that community hard. This is the community that has amongst the highest rates of vaccine¹⁹ hesitancy and denial of climate change when all the data is clearly in front of us. I don't blame them. I don't blame the communities that have taken that view. I blame the people who are providing them with false information, some of whom may even know it's false and yet continue to do so for other reasons, many of them political. That is truly heartbreaking.

MARTIN: What do you think the pandemic has revealed about not just who we are as a society, but assumptions about our collective desire to look out for one another?

COLLINS: To put it mildly, this is the golden rule. And the golden rule now - maybe it still applies to people that are in your own social grouping, your tribe. But it sure doesn't apply to the people on the other side where we are now so quick not just to say they're misguided, but to say they're evil; they're dangerous. It's particularly florid right now. And I guess COVID has made it clear that that's not just an unfortunate kind of a new chapter in the culture wars.

MARTIN: Where do you find hope here now?

COLLINS: My faith is a deep source of that. I also have hope that human nature, despite all of its foibles, is basically put together in a way that over time we find a way to do the right thing, even after making a lot of mistakes along the way. In addition to what I'm doing now with my research lab, which is a hope for finding answers to diabetes and aging, I'm also seriously thinking about whether there're ways that I might be able to use whatever credibility I have to try to make a case for bringing us out of this set of warring factions²⁰ towards something with more concern for each other. Do I have much of a chance in making a difference? I don't know. But I'm hopeful that maybe I could in some small way.

MARTIN: Dr. Collins loves to play guitar. So before we say goodbye, I asked him to play us something hopeful. He picked a hymn²¹ that came out of the Civil War.

COLLINS: (Singing, playing guitar) My life goes on an endless song of others' lamentations.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

3 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

4 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

5 frayed   

adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His shirt was frayed. 他的衬衫穿破了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The argument frayed their nerves. 争辩使他们不快。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

6 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

7 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

8 avowed   

adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• An aide avowed that the President had known nothing of the deals. 一位助理声明，总统对这些交易一无所知。
• The party's avowed aim was to struggle against capitalist exploitation. 该党公开宣称的宗旨是与资本主义剥削斗争。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 atheist   

n.无神论者

参考例句：

• She was an atheist but now she says she's seen the light.她本来是个无神论者，可是现在她说自己的信仰改变了。
• He is admittedly an atheist.他被公认是位无神论者。

10 wards   

区( ward的名词复数 )； 病房； 受监护的未成年者； 被人照顾或控制的状态

参考例句：

• This hospital has 20 medical [surgical] wards. 这所医院有 20 个内科[外科]病房。
• It was a big constituency divided into three wards. 这是一个大选区，下设三个分区。

11 inadequate   

adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的

参考例句：

• The supply is inadequate to meet the demand.供不应求。
• She was inadequate to the demands that were made on her.她还无力满足对她提出的各项要求。

12 atheism   

n.无神论，不信神

参考例句：

• Atheism is the opinion that there is no God.无神论是认为不存在上帝的看法。
• Atheism is a hot topic.无神论是个热门话题。

13 interrogating   

n.询问技术v.询问( interrogate的现在分词 )；审问；（在计算机或其他机器上）查询

参考例句：

• She was no longer interrogating but lecturing. 她已经不是在审问而是在教训人了。 来自辞典例句
• His face remained blank, interrogating, slightly helpless. 他的面部仍然没有表情，只带有询问的意思，还有点无可奈何。 来自辞典例句

14 pastor   

n.牧师，牧人

参考例句：

• He was the son of a poor pastor.他是一个穷牧师的儿子。
• We have no pastor at present:the church is run by five deacons.我们目前没有牧师：教会的事是由五位执事管理的。

15 blasphemous   

adj.亵渎神明的，不敬神的

参考例句：

• The book was declared blasphemous and all copies ordered to be burnt.这本书被断定为亵渎神明之作，命令全数焚毀。
• The people in the room were shocked by his blasphemous language.满屋的人都对他那侮慢的语言感到愤慨。

16 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

17 apparatus   

n.装置，器械；器具，设备

参考例句：

• The school's audio apparatus includes films and records.学校的视听设备包括放映机和录音机。
• They had a very refined apparatus.他们有一套非常精良的设备。

18 Christians   

n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Christians of all denominations attended the conference. 基督教所有教派的人都出席了这次会议。
• His novel about Jesus caused a furore among Christians. 他关于耶稣的小说激起了基督教徒的公愤。

19 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

20 factions   

组织中的小派别，派系( faction的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gens also lives on in the "factions." 氏族此外还继续存在于“factions〔“帮”〕中。 来自英汉非文学 - 家庭、私有制和国家的起源
• rival factions within the administration 政府中的对立派别

21 hymn   

n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌

参考例句：

• They sang a hymn of praise to God.他们唱着圣歌，赞美上帝。
• The choir has sung only two verses of the last hymn.合唱团只唱了最后一首赞美诗的两个段落。