I’m excited about the the commentary Dr. Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project,  wrote for the August issue of Sojourners, so I enjoyed most of NPR’s news story yesterday about Dr. Collins’ nomination to be head of the National Institute of Health.

Except for the surreal part that lapsed into repeated skepticism about one of the aspects of his life on which Dr. Collins has been most vocal: the positive relationship between science and his evangelical Christian faith.

After a perfectly reasonable description of Collins’ qualifications as a scientist who has skills as an administrator and communicator, and who can navigate governmental politics, NPR anchor Steve Inskeep and science correspondent John Hamilton – who should really know better – started to repeatedly tell each other that Collins “says” he finds no conflict between faith and science:

Inskeep: He’s an evangelical Christian. Is that something that some people at the NIH are going to be concerned about?

Hamilton: I think there are some scientists who are concerned about it….At the time [he spent 15 years running one of NIH’s institutes] his religion never seemed to be an issue. He also has disavowed creationism. He says that he sees no conflict between his religious beliefs and the ability to carry out cutting-edge science.

Inskeep: Let me be clear, there’s nothing wrong with being an evangelical Christian, obviously – the question here is whether he would have a conflict between his beliefs and the beliefs of some other scientists, and you’re saying there doesn’t seem to be a big conflict, as he sees the world.

Hamilton: I think if there’s anything that makes scientists uncomfortable, it’s the fact that he’s been very public…He wrote a book about it, and speaks frequently about his faith, and I think there are some scientists who just – they just don’t understand how he can reconcile those two parts of his thinking.

Inskeep: But he does.

Hamilton: He says he does.

Do Inskeep and Hamilton believe that Collins is lying about “seeing no conflict” between his religious beliefs and cutting-edge science? That his decades in research were not long enough to test this “seem”ing harmony? Do they believe that, during the time he was leading the project that sequenced the entire human genome, he never thought this through?

The surreal thing is that, in all the public speaking and writing that Hamilton mentions – and in the commentary he wrote for the August issue of Sojourners – Collins has been extremely eloquent about the synergy between science and faith. He founded a nonprofit, the Biologos Foundation, for the express purpose of spreading information about this synergy.

Saying that “there doesn’t seem to be a big conflict” between science and faith in his life is like saying that Torvill and Dean “did not trip over each other” on the ice.

Elizabeth Palmberg is an assistant editor of Sojourners.