An evangelical Christian, a Jew, and an agnostic walked into a podcast …
On the final episode of this season of the “First Opinion Podcast,” I spoke with former NIH Director Francis Collins and Fox News senior medical analyst Marc Siegel, author of the new book “The Miracles Among Us,” about the intersection of faith, science, and medicine. Collins, who became an evangelical Christian in his 20s, spoke eloquently about how he sees science as a way to get closer to God, even “glimpsing God’s mind,” as he described his word decoding the human genome.
We also talked about the way many people of faith have become anti-vaccine and anti-science more broadly.
I’m an agnostic — some might call me a Cashew, as my mother was Catholic and my father Jewish — and found the conversation illuminating and even a bit hopeful.
The podcast will be back in the spring. Let me know who you’d like to hear on the show.
Also: This is the last newsletter of 2025. I wish you and your families happy holidays. Thank you so much for reading First Opinion.
And if you’re still shopping for a gift for a loved one or for yourself — well, how about the gift of rigorous, thoughtful, fair reporting on the most important topics in medicine? Get 25% off your first year of STAT+. The offer ends Tuesday.
Recommendation of the week: “Wild Dark Shore,” by Charlotte McConaghy, plays out on a frigid but warming island located between Australia and Antarctica that houses a seedbank under threat from climate change. A family of caretakers on the island is shocked when a mysterious woman washes ashore, and personal dramas intersect with an impossible question: How do you decide what seeds to save and what to let drown?
