- Francis Collins is a physician scientist who after a particularly tough patient interaction went from being atheist to agnostic to evangelical Christian. He is also kind of my boss, and while I hope that fact is not influencing my opinion of his book, it probably is.
- The books has two audiences: scientists prejudiced against (organized) religion, and Christians prejudiced against science, evolution in particular.
- The message to the scientists is: read C.S. Lewis to find out more.
- The message to the faithful: don’t be narrow in your reading of the Bible, it’ll come back to bite you. And also read C.S. Lewis.
- The first few chapters read like Dr. Collins’ personal statement. Residency and fellowship applicants, take note.
- The scientific parts are accurate and an easy read for me and probably for the target audience as well.
- The parts on religion are vague, subjective, and rely too much on “trust me”.
- The part where he turns a story of a sexual assault against his daughter into a story about his faith deserves a cringe, a face-slap, and a letter of apology in future editions.
Written by Francis S. Collins, 2007