He's popular, not a popularizer...

The Buzz on Sb today has to do with Matt Nisbet's endorsement of Francis Collins to be the science adviser to the next presidential administration, and everyone seems to be piling on. (I had originally written a post about this topic but foolishly deleted it because I thought no one would really care. I guess that shows me.) RPM has presented the most thorough response so far, showing that Collins has waffled on some important scientific concepts despite his work at the National Human Genome Research Institute (his theistic leanings definitely flavor his statements about evolution and biology), and I agree that Collins would not make a very good pick at all.

Before I go into why I don't think Collins would make a good choice for science adviser, what makes a good scientific adviser should be determined (as Mike Dunford has pointed out in a recent post post.) What sort of responsibilities is the adviser going to have, and are they going to be able to communicate those ideas effectively to government officials and the public? The latter aspect is what makes science popularizers prominent choices, the ability to accurately inform politicians about scientific issues being crucial to the job. As Chris Mooney stated in an article recently published in SEED, though, whoever is chosen will have to be a quick study as they will have to understand important research involving stem cells, anthropogenic climate change, alternative energy resources, etc., which makes me think that it's going to be extremely difficult for any one scientist to do the job effectively even under the best circumstances. If the office had not been denigrated under the Bush administration I would have to wonder if the Office of Science and Technology would not be better off employing several advisers that would be assigned to areas that they know well (physical science, biology, ecology, etc.), but at present the position of science adviser needs to be firmly reestablished, probably constraining the next administration to the choice of one scientist.

As far as Collins goes, though, I don't really see why he makes a good choice. While he is popular I don't think he is an effective popularizer, and his allure seems to stem from his mixing of science and Christian theology, his openly religious views making him less threating than all those darned agnostics and atheists we keep hearing so much about. Indeed, from what I can tell Collins is more concerned with the promotion of his worldview than advancing scientific understanding, and he has seemingly done little in the public realm to further science education. Based upon what Collins has often expressed in the popular media, I am concerned with the fact that some questions seem to be "off limits" because of his faith, science having to be subjected to his religion when the two seem to be in conflict (see RPM's post for some examples). Indeed, Collins' book is rightly subtitled "A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief."

In contrast to Collins, another theistic evolutionist that I would argue is a more effective popularizer of science is Ken Miller, especially since Miller seems to be approaching the science/faith issue from the other direction and stressing the importance of science and evolution. I disagree with some of Miller's ideas involving theistic evolution, but I think that it is starkly apparent that Miller is concerned with getting people to understand evolution while Collins is writing primarily to defend his faith. Collins seems almost more devoted to the premise that there are some things that science can never explain, therefore requiring "divine help," and in a TIME magazine debate with Richard Dawkins, Collins admits that he's more concerned with the theological "whys" of the universe rather than the scientific study of the natural world. If that's his desire he's welcome to pursue it, but doing so certainly does not make him a competent science popularizer or a good candidate for presidential science adviser.

[For your further edification see Blake Stacey's take on this topic, too.]