Bear in mind that the NAS is a self-selecting sample. Richard Feynman famously resigned because they spent most of their meeting time deciding who’s “in” and who’s “out” and relatively little of it promoting science.

I’d like to see some figures to back that up, if you know where they can be found, because it doesn’t pass the “does it make sense” test.

It’s not totally on-point with Claudia’s statement, but this study finds that 40% of scientists, and 7% of “great” scientists believe in God:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v386/n6624/pdf/386435a0.pdf

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

I’ve known a number of scientists with strong theists beliefs, so I’m not exactly sure I’d call them “rare,” but they were definitely the minority, and stood out as the exception.

What IS rare amongst scientists, and most certainly amongst biologists, is a STRONG theistic belief.

I’d like to see some figures to back that up, if you know where they can be found, because it doesn’t pass the “does it make sense” test.

Just thinking about the life scientists, I’d certainly expect that strong US-style Evangelical Christianity is likely to be rare. However, based on the people I work with, I would also expect that, say, Modern Orthodox Judaism is likely to be more prevalent than in wider society.

He called Dawkins a “dogmatic athiest fundamentalist” which I think says far more about Collins. I don’t think his hilarious propensity towards wishthinking will get in the way of his job, because it didn’t as a scientist or administrator in the field of genetics. I can’t say I’m happy that someone who attacks atheism, agnosticism, and promotes belief in Christianity based on seeing a waterfall and really bad cosmology arguments is being placed in a prominent position. Collins is going to use his station to preach, Christians are going to use Collins’s position to preach, it’s not good. No, I think he deserves the criticism he gets.

I completely agree. He’s already demonstrated that he’s very happy to combine his faith with his work, and that he is willing to insult those darn “atheist fundamentalists” who understand that it’s critically important to keep faith completely out of science.

…except for some religious based limitations on cloning and embryonic stem cell research and possibly some other areas.

Can the director of the NIH do things like that? I would hope that Obama would have asked him about it before offering him the job.

(As an aside, remember how foolish he looked in Religulous?)

He’s the rare scientist who happens to believe in God.

Rare?

Vague religious belief can’t be called rare amongst scientists, though various studies have shown that it is a minority position, and even more so outside the US. More limited studies additionally show that scientists in biology and biochemistry are among the least religious of the already not very religious scientists.

What IS rare amongst scientists, and most certainly amongst biologists, is a STRONG theistic belief. Few scientists are really overtly theistic in the way Collins is and very tiny minority are fundamentalist Christians. This is even more accentuated amongst the elite scientists, of which Collins is a member.

The minority of scientists that don’t identify as atheist or agnostic are more likely to identify as deists or “spiritual” or “soft” theists. Collins is triply unusual: He’s a member of the scientific elite who not only believes in a god, but actually buys into the whole Bible orthodoxy.