What's New Friday, 5 Jun 05 Washington, DC

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 05 Jun 09   Washington, DC

1. NIH DIRECTOR:  WHY THE DELAY IN NAMING FRANCIS COLLINS? 
Unlike previous administrations, the Obama White House has been swift and 
wise in filling the major science posts.  Only the $30 billion National 
Institutes of Health, flush with stimulus money, remains without a 
permanent leader. The President lifted Bush administration restrictions on 
stem cell research early in March, http://bobpark.org/WN09/wn030609.html .  
It would have been natural to name Francis Collins as director at that 
time.  Until his resignation a year ago, Collins led the National Human 
Genome Research Project in its successful race against maverick Craig 
Venter.  Collins is expected to be named NIH Director any day, but why has 
it taken so long?  Many scientists are uncomfortable with Collins’ 
outspoken position on the God issue.  On questions of scientific fact, 
Collins invariably sides with science.  However, he is founder and 
president of the BioLogos Foundation, which emphasizes the compatibility of 
Christian Faith with the findings of science.  In "The Language of God," 
Collins describes his parents as only "nominally Christian" and says he 
regarded himself as an atheist through graduate school.  He attributes his 
conversion to the same reasons cited by each of the physicists who have won 
the Templeton prize: the moral law and the anthropic principle, 
http://bobpark.org/WN09/wn030609.html . Toward the end of his book he 
describes a moving religious experience with a young farmer in Nigeria who 
was dying of tuberculosis; he interpreted it as a vision of God's purpose. 
As Park noted in "Superstition," that an M.D. with a PhD in chemistry could 
not distinguish a hormone rush from an encounter with God is troubling. 

2. GENDER BIAS: NAS REPORT FINDS NONE IN ACADEMIA.
It is undeniable that there has been enormous progress in recent years, not 
just in academia, but in industry and government as well.  I note that for 
100 years the chief operating officers of the American Physical Society 
were all male physicists and held the title of Secretary.  When a female 
physicist was finally named, the title had to be changed to Executive 
Officer.  She is being succeeded by Kate Kirby of the Harvard Astronomy 
Department.  Her selection was praised by APS President, Cherry Murray, 
deputy director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  An editorial in 
today's Science points out that too many scientifically trained women are 
rejecting academia in favor of other career paths.  And in my freshman 
physics classes I still see far fewer women than men.  

3. EVOLUTION: DARWIN’S GOLDEN RETRIEVER DOES IT AGAIN.
Biologist Thomas Huxley was known as “Darwin's bulldog” for his spirited 
defense of Darwin's theory.  Darwin’s chief defender today is Genie Scott, 
director of the National Center for Science Education, who just won the 
inaugural Stephen Jay Gould Prize of the Society for the Study of 
Evolution.  She was ranked by Scientific American as one of the top ten 
science leaders just a few weeks ago.

4. ARCHIVES: THE MISSING ISSUES ARE NOW AVAILABLE.
Many readers access WN directly from the web, http://bobpark.org , rather 
than by e-mail subscription, or use to search back issues.  That's fine 
with us.  Unfortunately the last two issues did not get onto the site, for 
which we apologize. The problem has now been fixed. 

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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