Book Review: Road to Wisdom

 Information about the book

Collins, Francis S.  The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust,  Little, Brown, and Company. New York. 2024. (Amazon)

Summary

From Amazon: "As the COVID-19 pandemic revealed, we have become not just a hyper-partisan society but also a deeply cynical one, distrustful of traditional sources of knowledge and wisdom. Skepticism about vaccines led to the needless deaths of at least 230,000 Americans. “Do your own research” is now a rallying cry in many online rabbit holes. Yet experts can make mistakes, and institutions can lose their moral compass. So how can we navigate through all this?

In The Road to Wisdom, Francis Collins reminds us of the four core sources of judgement and clear thinking: truth, science, faith, and trust. Drawing on his work from the Human Genome Project and heading the National Institutes of Health, as well as on ethics, philosophy, and Christian theology, Collins makes a robust, thoughtful case for each of these sources—their reliability, and their limits. Ultimately, he shows how they work together, not separately—and certainly not in conflict. Dr. Francis Collins was the head of the Human Genome Project, and is a world-leading scientist.  He is also a person of faith.  From the back cover of the book: "Dr. Collins believes that faith in God and faith in science can coexist within a person and be harmonious.  In The Language of God he makes his case for God and for science."

Impressions

My pastor, in a sermon, mentioned this book. She had seen Francis Collins interviewed on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (interesting interview). I was in the middle of the Religion and Science class and had read The Language of God by Francis Collins this summer.

I enjoyed the book. I especially found the chapter that talks about truth to be interesting - truth as concentric circles.  I don't think I've written a post about it, but I should.  As I mentioned, I read The Language of God prior to the Religion and Science class - in some ways, I think this book would have been a better prequel to the class - impossible for me, since it came out int eh middle of the class, but for future reference....

I would recommend this book.

Posts about book

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