Former National Institutes of Health ( NIH) Director and Biden administration science adviser Francis Collins is back in the limelight with a new book, The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust.
The book is written in a lovely manner, and those who admire Collins may probably adore it, in an effort to repair his deteriorating standing post-Covid. The book’s descriptions of his problems as a post-doc after his original research job failed are certainly moving.
But do n’t anticipate that Collins will be presenting his NIH career with many mea culpas. He does n’t apologize for funding the medical research use of body parts from late-term aborted babies. or to finance studies that examined fresh people’s use of gender-destructive puberty blockers. He also disapproves of his earlier support for the Marxist hypothesis that” bad DNA” is the source of our genome’s overflow.
Collins also does n’t take ownership of Covid’s most significant errors in real life. After the release of the Covid vaccines, Collins erroneously assured the people that the mRNA would not remain in the body” for more than a few hours.” A later study revealed that the mRNA may remain in a woman’s lymph system for up to two months. Collins ‘ development of propaganda has been memory-holed. But has his assertive promise in April 2021 that” There’s not going to be any demanding of vaccines from the U. S. state, I can tell you”. A few months later, Collins was praising the imposition of mandates as a “forceful, muscular approach” and demonizing those who did n’t want to take the vaccines as killers on the wrong side of history.
Collins acknowledges issues with government messaging during Covid and the” collateral damage” that various policies have caused to regular Americans.  , But he calls the credit injury “inevitable”.
For many people, his enrollment will be too much, too late.
However, Collins ‘ inability to accept responsibility for his actions is not his most glaring weakness in the new publication.
The most critical weakness is Collins ‘ key message. He worries about scientific rigor and growing hostility of promises made in the name of science. He wants to regain public trust in “science” and the authorities.
He mostly confluences knowledge with his own political agenda, which is where the problem is. By the end of the book, it becomes obvious that “science” has become a convenient place for those who disagree with him. If you disagree with him on weather change, or Covid legislation, or Darwinian evolution, or believe the 2020 presidential election was cruel, you are part of the anti-science composite. Collins prefers to attack strawmen rather than address major issues raised by contemporaries with the same level of expertise by focusing on the most secretive says of those with whom he disagrees.
In his suggestion for people to make “pre-bunking” says so they” can avoid being taken in,” Collins ‘ strategy demonstrates how mendacious it is. Before he applies his phone for suspicion, it sounds great. In response to climate change, Collins urges users to defend their beliefs about global warming, which he believes is due to human activities. How? by considering the egotistical motivations that may drive some people to belittle global warming. For instance, they might “have a particular interest in seeing continued use of fossil fuels,” or possibly they “wish to make as many disharmony within our community as possible,” or perhaps they are “politicians who view climate change denial as excellent for votes and plan donations.”
According to Collins, you do n’t have to consider the arguments being made if you have “pre-bunked” the motives of the people making them. Tellingly, Collins does n’t suggest questioning the motives of those he agrees with on global warming. His “pre-bunking” is completely one-sided. His intention is to stop important examination rather than foster it.
Collins does provide some excellent suggestions. He is correct to say that” all of us must access several sources of information in order to separate facts from fakes.” He then suggests that people rely on “respected long-standing sources of reliable information” like” the New York Times” or” the Washington Post,” claiming that” their… news reporting will generally be trusted and will have been fact-checked.” He appears ignorant to the biases of the establishment media and the fact that these “multiple sources of information” offer essentially the same skewed view of reality.
Collins even advises speaking up when disagreeing with others. However, he has spent many of his job doing the same. Collins recalls his latest involvement with discussions with regular Americans who disagree with him regarding Covid. Although he had had some federal energy, it would have been much better if he had been open to the opinions of other scientists.
In October 2020, three separated biologists published the Great Barrington Declaration, which criticized the president’s quarantine laws. How did Collins answer? Did he schedule a meeting to speak them out, and what did they say? No, he derided them in secret as “fringe” images and told employees:” There needs to be a fast and devastating get down” of their tips. Collins expresses regret for his “intemperate” language, but says he has” no regrets for the point I made”.
In other words, he really has n’t learned anything.
It’s precisely because Collins has distanced himself from other professionals who disagree with him that he finds it so simple to parody his opponents ‘ points of view.  ,
That is not the path to knowledge. It’s a path to hate.  ,
John G. West, Ph. D., is vice chairman of the Discovery Institute.
