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Francis Collins Appointed to Head NIH

LAURAN NEERGAARD
Posted: July 9, 2009.
Published: July 8, 2009.

Print: The Huffington Post

President Barack Obama has chosen influential genetic scientist Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Known for helping to unravel the human genetic codes, he is also known for trying to find common ground between belief in God and science and is author of the 2007 best-seller The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

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Comments (7)

Ah crap….

posted on July 9, 2009
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2. John Wilkinson

The Audacity of Apologetics.

posted on July 10, 2009
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The fact that voters had to choose between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama is a sad commentary on the level of literacy and political literacy in the United States.  I voted for Obama because Palin and McCain showed themselves to be frightening figures, intellectually,  Now, I am beginning to regret that I voted at all.  If Obama read Collins’ book and did not notice the incoherence and contradictions in his analyses, he should not be President of this country.  It is Obama’s intellectual shallowness that led to Vladimir Putin continually correcting and lecturing him during their recent meeting.  Obama accused Putin of having “one foot in the old ways.”  However, since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has invaded two countries, and still occupies both of them.  Despite the end of the Cold War, NATO has expanded numerically and territorially, and the U.S. defense budget now outstrips the rest of the world’s.  President Obama did not notice his inconsistency.  We elected an orator of no philosophical depth.  The alternative candidate, however, was ill-informed and often exhibited infantile reasoning.  Educators, what have you done to the American mind?

posted on July 10, 2009
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From the very beginning, I had warned that voting for Obama is voting for a religious bigot.  He has shamelessly turned back on his promise of rescinding the DADT policy, expanded on Bush’s Faith-based initiatives, opposed gay marriage with double-talk, and made good with religious nutters.  Appointing Collins (he of the I-saw-three-waterfalls-which-is-all-the-proof-a-scientist-requires-of-the-existence-of-Jesus-Christ infamy) is simply an extension of the calculated rebuke of reason.
Those of you who did not see this coming are myopic, and should work towards educating yourself on the dangers we face in this religiously bigoted society.
And you can start by not tolerating the intolerant.  More forcibly, and more openly

posted on July 10, 2009
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http://www.reasonproject.org/newsfeed/item/francis_collins_appointed_to_head_nih/#c1223

One of the other candidates was Bob Barr.  What was wrong with him? 

Or did somebody convince you that a vote for Barr was a wasted vote?

I can imagine that someone did, you appear rather gullible

posted on July 10, 2009
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Anyone seriously involved in the political process is accustomed to these sorts of disappointments in our chosen candidates. We must strive to advance our values utilizing the political process. Our system provides for very few choices. Often our support is taken for granted by those we elect. The Obama administration has dramatically shifted the federal government’s orientation vis-a-vie the scientific community. This shift has been overwhelmingly positive. This appointment represents a small disappointment to us but seeing a larger context, may be part of the tendency to compromise that has been the hallmark of the Obama administration. Frustrating, difficult to understand?  What else is new?

posted on July 11, 2009
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Everyone who sees this should read the discussion between Collins and Richard Dawkins. It was a Time article and is now reposted on the main page of richarddawkins.net Read it and see just how serious having Collins in this position could be.

posted on July 11, 2009
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