124. The Road to Wisdom - On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust: Dr. Francis S. Collins (Physician, Geneticist, Former Director of NIH)

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A multifaceted understanding of wisdom is essential for a functioning society.  Only with this broad understanding can we humbly dialogue with those who disagree with us and piece by piece build a culture of conversation. In this episode, I sit down with geneticist and physician Dr. Francis Collins to discuss his latest book, The Road to Wisdom. Dr. Collins argues that we must return to the four core sources of judgment and clear thinking: truth, science, faith, and trust.

A Quick Note:

Aiming for the Moon has a diverse audience. I strongly believe that developing your perspective comes from speaking with people who you both agree with and disagree with. Iron sharpens iron. That’s why this podcast is a platform that hosts interesting and successful people from a variety of worldviews. Gen. Z has the opportunity to trailblaze a culture of conversation. So, let’s go.

Topic:

• Four Anchors of Knowledge: Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust
• Cynicism and Nihilism in Public Discourse 
• The Importance of Humility in Dialogue
• "How has being attacked by those 'on your side?' changed how you communicate?"
• Harmonizing Faith and Science
• Iron sharpens Iron: How going outside your bubble helps expand your perspective
• Navigating Polarized Issues in a Multicultural Society
• Practical Steps: So, how should we then live?
• "What books have had an impact on you?"
• "What advice do you have for teenagers?"

Bio:
Dr. Francis S. Collins is a physician and geneticist. His groundbreaking work has led to the discovery of the cause of cystic fibrosis, among other diseases.  In 1993 he was appointed director of the international Human Genome Project, which successfully sequenced all 3 billion letters of our DNA. He went on to serve three Presidents as the Director of the National Institutes of Health.

Resources mentioned:

• The Road to Wisdom
• Taylor's Substack: The Dangers of Abstracting Individuals in a Divided Society
• Ep. 80. The Perception of Political Polarization and How to Fix It: Dr. Chris Bail
• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
• Books of impact:
  • Bible
  • Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
  • The Constitution of Knowledge by Jonathan Rauch

Socials -

Lessons from Interesting People substack: https://taylorbledsoe.substack.com/

Website: https://www.aimingforthemoon.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiming4moon/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aiming4Moon

Facebook:
taylor Bledsoe.
On this podcast, I interviewinteresting people from a

(00:36):
teenage perspective.
In this episode, I sit downwith geneticist and physician Dr
Francis Collins to discuss hislatest book Road to Wisdom.
Dr Collins argues that we mustreturn to the four core sources
of judgment and clear thinkingtruth, science, faith and trust.
Dr Francis S Collins'groundbreaking work has led to
the discovery of the cause ofcystic fibrosis, among other

(00:56):
diseases.
In 1993, he was appointeddirector of the International
Human Genome Project, whichsuccessfully sequenced all three
billion letters of our DNA.
He went on to serve threepresidents as the director of
the National Institutes ofHealth.
If you like what you hear today, please rate the podcast and
subscribe.
You can follow us at aiming thenumber four moon on all the

(01:19):
socials to stay up to date onpodcast news and episodes.
Check out the episode notes forlinks to our website,
aimingforthemooncom and ourpodcast sub stack Lessons from
Interesting People.
All right with that?
Sit back, relax and listen in.
Thanks again to Paxton Page forthis incredible music.
Now, in the silence before theinterview, I want to make a

(01:42):
quick note, because Aiming forthe Moon has a diverse audience,
and this episode deals withsome points in contemporary
politics.
I strongly believe thatdeveloping your own perspective
comes from speaking with peoplewho you both agree with and
disagree with.
Iron sharpens iron.
That's why this podcast is aplatform that hosts interesting

(02:03):
and successful people from avariety of worldviews.
Gen Z has the opportunity totrailblaze a culture of
conversation, so let's go so.
Thank you so much, dr Collins,for coming on the podcast.
It's wonderful to have you on.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
I'm glad to join you, Taylor.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
So you're publishing, in the processes of releasing a
book called the Road to Wisdom,on Truth, science, faith and
Trust, and to kind of set thestage for our audience, I want
to highlight what are these,this actually combined road of
wisdom, and why are they notcontradicting each other or in
paradox?

(02:40):
So could you explain, expoundon that before we dive into the
rest of the book?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I will do my best.
As a scientist, a physician, aChristian, I'm really troubled
by the way in which our societyseems to have lost its anchors
to things that have helped us alot over the many centuries, and
that includes truth and thefact there really is such a
thing as objective truth andit's not just somebody's opinion

(03:07):
.
Sometimes truth doesn't carehow we feel and you need to
accept a fact as a fact.
It's not always happening.
Now, science, another anchorthat has helped us a lot over
many centuries to discover truthabout nature, now seems to be a
topic of considerable distrustamongst many people, as if maybe

(03:28):
a scientific conclusion, eventhough well-established and
replicated, can't really betrusted if it doesn't sort of
fit with your gut feeling aboutwhat the facts should be.
And as a person of faith, faithis another anchor that has
helped us a lot.
Faith is all about truth as welldifferent kinds of truth, more
transcendental truth, and yetfaith in our current climate

(03:50):
seems to have gotten verytangled up with other kinds of
messages like politics.
And then you put it alltogether and it all points to
one really fundamental issuethat is causing us, I think, a
great deal of suffering, andthat is the inability to decide
who to trust and how to anchoryour trust appropriately in

(04:10):
things like competence andintegrity and humility, as
opposed to I'm just going totrust somebody who thinks like I
do, even if it was just a poston Facebook.
So put those together, okay.
Truth, science, faith and trustall ought to be foundational
principles for a flourishingsociety, but all of them are

(04:32):
really now brought into question, perhaps feeling a little
frayed, and I can't look at thatand just walk away.
It feels like I have to try tosay what maybe are some of the
flaws in the currentcircumstance and how could we
get ourselves back on a betterpath.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
There seems to be this reductionism almost across
American culture and Westernculture, especially where we're
saying that wisdom or livingwell, I guess, would be another
definition of wisdom is onlydefined by one of these four.
So you can only do it by faith,you can only do it by science,

(05:08):
and we emphasize one of thesewhen really it doesn't feel like
you can reduce living well tojust one of these.
So could you talk about that abit?
Is that a real thing that we'redoing?

Speaker 2 (05:19):
I really like the way you phrased that, taylor.
Yeah, I think that is the pointthat the book is trying to make
.
What is wisdom anyway?
Wisdom is all about knowledge,but it's more than that.
But if you don't have theknowledge, your chance of
getting to wisdom is prettylimited.
So you do have to have thisfundamental agreement about
established facts that societyhas basically come to the

(05:41):
conclusion these things are true, and your wisdom has to build
on that and you can't justdecide to reject the established
facts that you don't like.
But then, on top of that wisdomhas to include judgment,
understanding what does thatfact actually mean for me and
for people I care about and evena moral compass about what's
right and what's wrong.

(06:02):
And part of what's right andwhat's wrong also sort of
reflects how we deal with eachother, and I think a moral
compass for the present timewould argue that we should be
loving to each other, we shouldbe listening to each other and
not railing at each other, andwe've lost our way, at least in
many settings, about that aswell.

(06:22):
So yeah, we need to be on thatroad to wisdom.
I'm on it too.
By the way, I hope nobodylooking at this book thinks oh,
Collins has it all figured out.
He's going to tell us how toget to the end of the road.
No, I'm very much on the roadand I occasionally slip off and
fall in the ditch like everybodyelse, but I do think there's
some longstanding principlesthat have been around ever since

(06:43):
people started thinking aboutthese things, and many of which
are foundational to theChristian faith, that have
gotten frayed or set off to theside and have been overtaken by
other kinds of angry, fearful,vitriolic environments that are
just.
That's not who we are, and Iguess this book aims to try to

(07:04):
convince people.
It's not enough to say itshouldn't be like this.
We could also say I shouldn'tbe like this.
What can I do to try to turnthis around?

Speaker 1 (07:15):
A big topic I've been thinking about along the same
lane is we almost I feel thisnihilism and cynicism from
culture, and even sometimesmyself, where it feels like
we've well, we've tried to loveour neighbor, we've tried to do,
we've tried to be nice, but now, you know, everyone, no one

(07:35):
cares anymore.
So let's just, let's go for thethroat, let's go all in.
And you feel this very intensevehemence as you discussed that.
Well, I mean, we tried thatalready and that didn't work out
for us.
So now we're on the attack.
How do we turn back thatculture?
And, yeah, what do you thinkabout that culture?

Speaker 2 (07:58):
I think we are infected by sort of a
catastrophism mindset that, likeyou know, our entire way of
life is under threat ofimmediate destruction by evil
forces that are coming at usfrom all directions.
That is way, way beyond thecurrent circumstance.
But we're making it worse bytaking that view and along the

(08:20):
way we may even say to ourselvesas people of faith well, you
know, those words of Jesus werefine about loving your neighbor
and loving your enemies, butwe're at war now.
That won't work anymore.
Wake up, get real.
That is so far beyond what weshould be depending upon in
terms of the foundation ofthings that really matter.
But we've kind of gotten thatplace and we could argue and

(08:44):
discuss about what are thesources of that are.
I think there's a group calledMore in Common.
That's kind of surveyed societyin both the UK and the US, and
they would argue that what wehear primarily are coming from
the fringes, both on the leftand the right, and they are
angry and they're ready todemonize anybody who doesn't

(09:04):
agree with them and they imaginethat people on the other side
of the political spectrum arereally much more radical than
they are.
But most of us aren't in thatspace.
Most of us are probably inwhat's called the exhausted
middle.
We're just tired of all thenastiness, all the accusations,
all the vitriol, but we're notquite sure what to do about it.

(09:27):
Some of us are a little more onthe blue side or a little bit
more on the red side of thepolitical spectrum, but we're
not in those fringes wherepolitics is everything that
matters.
But if you look at social mediaor if you look at cable news,
it looks as if that's all thatmatters, because that's all.
You see, messages that makepeople angry get quickly spread
fearful, quickly spread.
Messages about truth andharmony well, they land flat,

(09:51):
and that's part of our issue.
We're absolutely surrounded bynegativity, and yet most of us
don't like it that way.
But we can't figure out what todo about it.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
This has been a topic of conversation on the podcast
before Dr Chris Bale of thePolarization Lab at Duke, which
was fascinating because it wasthat same idea of the loudest
voices are the most vicious andthey get the most shares.
And even the people who areliking and reposting those posts
.
They're also the most extremeand the most loud because

(10:23):
everyone else is reading thepost and being like I'm not sure
that's a good idea, thatdoesn't feel like a great thing
to do.
But they don't want to insertthemselves into this ring
because I mean, for most peopleliving their lives it doesn't
seem it doesn't really gainanything for them.
Like why would I want to like arepost or even comment?

(10:45):
It's just I'll back away andkind of live my own life.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, although there are also people like well, I
don't know if it's true or not,but I'm going to send it out to
a lot of people and see whatthey say, and that's how things
go viral.
One of the things I wouldreally advocate is anybody who's
listening to this.
If you're on social media and amessage comes through to you
that makes you upset, but you'renot really quite sure if it's
true or not, then don't be partof the distribution of something

(11:13):
that will get a lot of otherpeople upset and which
ultimately, in the long run,turns out to be fabricated,
because that happens all thetime.
The lies spread like a wildfire.
The truth just sits at home.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
That's what a great metaphor them to say like have
that opinion or something, notin this demeaning kind of
analyzing way, but likegenuinely caring about that
person and having humility.
I love that theme.
Could you talk more about that?

Speaker 2 (11:59):
I've learned a lot about that from a group called
Braver Angels, and peoplelistening to this who don't know
about Braver Angels look upbraverangelsorg, because you
might actually want to getengaged as well.
They have 100 chapters aroundthe country trying to bring
together people who have verydifferent views about a
particular topic, but teachingus not just to shout at each

(12:20):
other, but to listen.
I mean really listen.
Listen for understanding, notlistening to plan your snappy
response.
By spending a lot of time inthose settings, I have come to
realize that some of my ownpositions on particular issues
were not as carefully thoughtthrough as I would have tried to
claim they were, and I'vereally been able to see why

(12:41):
people who have very differentviews about things like public
health have arrived at thosedecisions.
And I'm better able tounderstand that, even though in
many instances I still don'tthink it's quite correct.
But I can see where it's comingfrom.
We need to do a lot more ofthat and we at the present time
are really poor at it.
We go into a discussion withsomebody we know we don't agree

(13:03):
with and we have our plan about.
I'm going to prove you wrong andyou're going to come at them
with your facts, and of coursethey have their version of the
facts and you're going to comeat them with your facts and of
course, they have their versionof the facts and they demonize
you and you demonize them andpretty soon there's only demons
in the discussion.
That doesn't turn out well, sothat's the wrong way.
In fact, you can even causepeople to double down on

(13:24):
misinformation if you attackthem and put them into a corner.
That's the wrong thing to do.
Got to take the time.
Recognize this is a real personwith real values, many of them
the same as yours.
They care also about love andtruth and beauty and goodness,
just like you do, but they havethese other layers on top of
that.
Help understand the layers andthen you might make a friend,

(13:45):
even though you hadn't expectedto.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
I'm curious how you yourself mentioned that you're a
Christian earlier in thisepisode and throughout it.
How has your perception of theworld and how to communicate and
engage with people changed, asyou've been attacked by people I
guess, quote unquote on yourown side by Christian
evangelicals?
How has that changed the wayyou live your life and perceive
the world and communicate ideasas well as carry yourself?

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah yeah, the harshest, most personal attacks
I've received as NIH directorduring COVID were from
Christians, and that was prettyhard to see.
I got plenty of attacks frompeople who were not people of
faith, but the ones that reallywent straight with the sharp
implements to your heart tend tobe Christians, questioning
whether you could possibly be abeliever if you stood up for the
importance of gettingvaccinated, for instance, and to

(14:40):
see that politicized the waythat it was.
Why should vaccines, a purelyscientific public health issue,
have gotten so completelytangled up with faith
perspectives and with politics?
They just didn't belong in thesame conversation.
But boy were they ever in thatspace.
It did not cause me to questionmy faith, because that doesn't

(15:03):
come from people.
That comes from Jesus and fromthe Bible.
And when I look at the words ofJesus in this situation,
they're incredibly reassuring.
Psalm 46, God is our refuge andstrength of ever-present help
in trouble.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
Okay, we got trouble but God is right there and I
claim that and, gosh, just goback.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
If you're having a bad day, go back and read the
Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5, 6, and 7.
The clearest explanation fromJesus about what we're all about
.
Why are we here?
What is our goal?
How are we supposed to treateach other?
And then re-anchor yourself andfeel like, okay, there's going
to be a lot of people who don'tagree with this, but this is
going to be my stance.

(15:45):
I'm going to try not to getknocked off my position by
incoming missiles that arepretty nasty but are really way
out of the context of what Ithink I'm here for.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, you mentioned, as you've been famously a
proponent of science and faithnot being paradoxical at all, in
fact, oftentimes intertwiningtogether and helping each other,
understanding parts of faiththrough science and
understanding parts of sciencethrough faith as well and it
seems that same idea is now notjust an intellectual idea like

(16:19):
oh, that's kind of cool, that'sa cool spiritual thing and
intellectual thing, but now it'sthe forefront of our society
with the pandemic and a lot ofnew regulation, with artificial
intelligence and newtechnologies and, yeah, that was
a big theme of the book that Ijust found absolutely
fascinating.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah, people of faith I think need to be in these
conversations and not steppingaway like, oh, I don't really
know if I trust science and I'mnot sure those scientists are
not just trying to undercutfaith.
We're not.
40% of scientists are believersand they don't always talk
about it as publicly as I have.
So if you really want to havethe best hopes for our future,

(17:00):
you can't have science win andfaith lose.
Either one of those is like aterrible outcome, but together
the harmony.
You can find there faithbringing insight, bringing a
moral compass.
You can find there Faithbringing insight, bringing a
moral compass, bringing a senseof purpose and why we're all
here and what really matters andwhat's the basis of morality.
That adds a lot to what sciencecan teach us about the basic

(17:21):
facts, about how nature worksand how we can discover things
about nature that can help uswith flourishing.
Although science can makemistakes, they are
self-correcting over timebecause people tend to go back
and try to replicate that.
So you put the two together andyou've got a wonderful
foundation for advancing thecause of a loving kind of human

(17:43):
society.
But unfortunately, all toooften, and especially right now,
there seems to be this sense.
Well, you've got to go with oneor the other.
The left has become the partyof science and the right has
become the party of faith, and Idon't want to be in those
exclusive clubs Back to theexhausted middle.
I think they probably see thevalue of both, but they aren't

(18:04):
quite sure how to sustain thatwith all the messages that are
coming about, the incongruity oreven the conflict between
science and faith.
I became a Christian at age 27.
I was not raised as a Christian.
Part of what convinced me wasthat faith and science were so
beautifully rationally connected.
There's so many bits ofevidence for God that science

(18:28):
discovers, like the Big Bang andthe fine-tuning of the universe
and the moral law.
How could we possibly take aposition that one of those has
to survive and the other has tobe pushed aside?
It's irrational, it's unloving,it's destructive, and we have a
chance, when we put thosethings together in the current
climate, to try to see if we canbring our society back to a

(18:49):
better place.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
And kind of to highlight this idea of faith and
reason and science not beingparadoxical to each other, but
also this idea of well, Ibelieve that all of those are
connected.
Therefore, I shouldn't go outand kind of hear pushback to
these ideas.
You are famously friends withmany well-known atheists and
that hasn't had you lose yourfaith or your scientific
credibility at all.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
No, it's the opposite .
You know the biblical verseabout iron sharpens iron.
If you really want to discoverhow strong is your faith, are
there some weak places you needto work on?
Have a really vigorousdiscussion with an atheist and
see how that suits you.
I became quite a close friendwith Christopher Hitchens, one
of the most famous atheists, whowas outspoken until the very

(19:39):
end that faith had no use forhim.
In fact it was evil anddangerous.
But we became very good friendsand he didn't mind my praying
for him, even though he thoughtnobody was listening, and I
learned so much from hisperspective about how better to
understand and defend my faithin a circumstance where somebody
didn't accept it.
We're too often, I think,reluctant to do that and we want

(20:02):
to hang out in our own crowd ofpeople who share our views, in
these so-called bubbles, andthat's about faith issues and
that's about politics, and it'snot the way in which we can
expand our own intellectual andemotional and religious
perspectives that we're missingout on the chance to really
enliven and enrich ourselves byjust having the same

(20:23):
conversations with people whoall agree with us no-transcript

(20:52):
aren't just matters of opinionthat we're disagreeing about,
but these are morally.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
these are moral questions that we're disagreeing
with about, and if you frame adebate in terms of moral
questions, then not that thereare things that are wrong and
not good, but it makes it reallyeasy to then say, well, now I'm
going to war.
And especially in amulticultural society like
America, you have differentreligions, different worldviews

(21:18):
and people sometimes disagreeabout what's morally correct and
what's not.
So how do we go about having agood conversation and still
figuring out issues with peoplewho might disagree morally about
some of the things that we say?
How do you have thatmulticultural conversation?

Speaker 2 (21:37):
I'm doing a lot of listening and not coming into it
with your own agenda about howyou're going to correct the
errors of the other person.
Remember, each one of us is inthe image of God.
Even if you're meeting withsomebody who you have heard has
a very different view aboutsomething that you consider
absolutely wrong and dangerous,that person is in the image of

(21:59):
God.
That person has a history, acircumstance, a family, social
circumstances that you need tounderstand a little bit and see.
Okay, how did this happen?
The first question I try to askwhen I have a conversation like
that is how did you come tobelieve in this particular
perspective?
Walk me through that, help meunderstand where your views come

(22:23):
from, and then somebody willstart to tell you a bit about
their life story and suddenlythis is no longer a cartoon
figure.
This is a person with all kindsof experiences, some of them
deeply painful, some of themtriumphant, and you can start to
see something taking shape andimmediately your opportunity for
empathy starts to go up.

(22:44):
We have way too low empathy mostof the time in these
conversations and then as itgoes along you may even get to
the point and this is a realgame changer where, after you've
expressed your views gently andnot like you, have to believe
what I do.
but let me tell you about why Ibelieve One of you maybe you, if
you're starting theconversation can also say but

(23:04):
you know, I'm not entirely sureabout every part of the argument
I just gave you.
There might be some placeswhere I still need to work on
this.
If you can get the other personthen to engage with you that
way and both can start to admitthe shakiness of what seems to
be very dug-in positions, thenyou've really got a chance to

(23:25):
make a friend and move each ofyou in a direction that's going
to be closer to what I think Godcalls us to.
Not that we agree on everything, but you're not going to be
disagreeable of it.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
I wrote a piece recently for my Substack
listeners it's linked belowAbstracting the dangers of
abstracting individuals in adivided society, and it's based
around Russian author DostoevskyHis idea of when we he has a
quote actually in Crime andPunishment, he was abstract and
therefore cruel.
You deal in ideas of people,not with the individuals

(24:01):
themselves.
You can justify a lot ofterrible things because you're
not, you don't love that person,you just see them as kind of an
object out there.
And he provides the solutionthen to that, which is this idea
of of active love, likesacrificial and and humble
actions of conversation and anddoing things for people, so kind
of going down that route.
How should we then live?

(24:23):
Like?
What do we do about this?

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Well, I think we should start by stepping back
from all of the attitudes thatwe may have been infected by in
the current animosity-ladensociety that we live in and say
okay, wait a minute.
What are my foundationalworldviews?
What do I really consider to bevirtues that I want to
represent?

(24:47):
Love, beauty, truth, goodness,family freedom all of those
things that I think mosteverybody agrees to, but maybe
they haven't been as prominentin our attitudes and our
behaviors because we've got allthese other layers on top of it.
Step back and try to re-anchoryourself to that worldview.
What is it that you want to beas a person?

(25:11):
And, if you're a believer, as achild of God?
And maybe go back and do readthat Sermon on the Mount again
and ask yourself am I actuallyliving this the way that Christ
called me to?
And then examine your own timeand how you're spending it.
If you're on social media forhours and hours every day, is

(25:39):
that actually a source ofinformation that is elevating
you, that's inspiring you to bea better person, or is it just
making you mad and fearful?
And maybe think about whetheryour time could be better spent
in some other activity thanlooking at the screen and
getting upset about it and thenreally make a resolution If
we're going to try to changesomething a resolution to try to
be part of the solution and tryidentify a few people who you

(26:00):
really disagree with aboutsomething but you kind of think
they might be reasonable peopleanyway and reach out and
practice this idea of having aconversation where the
opportunity to really listen andeven to the point of being able
to say back to that person well, what I heard you say was and

(26:21):
articulating it and explainingwhy you think that person feels
that that's the only way peoplereally know they've been hurt.
Get into that attitude and thenspread that around a little bit
, maybe not just one-on-one,find other like-minded people,
start to build a grassrootseffort here.
That is the antidote to all theanimosity.
That's the best hope.
I don't think the solutions arecoming from politicians.

(26:42):
They seem more polarized thanthe country.
I don't see the media solvingthis, because they basically
seem to be most successful whenthey make people angry and
they're really good at that.
It's got to come from us andour communities and our churches
.
Unfortunately, a lot ofchurches have been more the site
of animosity than they have oflove and good listening, but

(27:06):
that ought to be changeable too.
I know I sound like an optimist, but I do think there's enough
motivation in this exhaustedmiddle, which is two thirds of
the country, that we ought to beable to turn this around.
If we all decide to take someresponsibility to do so, that we
ought to be able to turn thisaround.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
If we all decide to take some responsibility, to do
so.
Wrapping up with the last twoquestions, we ask all of our
guests what books have had animpact on you?

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Well, I would have to start with the Bible, and yes,
I know some people say that andthey've never read it.
I have read it all the waythrough and I read it most days
first thing in the morning whenI get up at 5 am to try to get
myself in a good space here forfacing whatever the day has to
bring to me, In the samereaction when I was an atheist
and I was trying to figure outhow people could actually
believe this stuff.

(27:54):
somebody gave me CS Lewis's bookcalled Mere Christianity, and
that timeless explanation of therationality of faith and the
irrationality of atheism justtotally blew me away, destroyed
my worldview of atheism in thespace of a few chapters.
So I still think of that as justan incredible gift from an

(28:16):
Oxford scholar who himself hadbeen an atheist and came to
faith, and so he knew what mycounter arguments were going to
be, and he demolished those too.
So in terms of current ones, Iwould say Jonathan Rauch's book
called the Constitution ofKnowledge is a really well
argued explanation of thedangers of giving up our anchor

(28:39):
to truth and the fact that thereare facts that we all have to
accept because they've been wellestablished.
It criticizes both the rightand the left inappropriately,
but it really nails the argumentabout what we are missing if
we're starting to give up onthat particular constitution.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
We have a constitution of laws.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
We all know about that, he argues.
It's a constitution ofknowledge, which is our shared
sense of things.
That are true, but it's gettinga little bit more likely to be
questioned and that's dangerous.
Yeah, that would be three.
I could go on.
I read a lot of books.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
And then our last question is what advice do you
have to teenagers?

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Well, in that case, I am deeply troubled about the
harms that are being done toteenagers on social media.
the connection between the rapidincrease in mental health
problems in adolescents andcollege students.

(29:43):
And social media, andparticularly for women, where
they coming online of Instagram,with all that that carried in
terms of selfies and theopportunity to look down on
oneself because you're not asperfect as the other people you
see, posting has done enormousharm.
With boys, it's more like videogames and countless hours that

(30:05):
get wasted and pornography.
You know, these influences,which were supposed to bring us
together, have been driving usapart and making us sick, and
I'm totally in agreement withSurgeon General Vivek Murthy
saying there ought to be awarning label on social media.
This could be harmful in amajor way to your health,
particularly for adolescents,but also for adults too.

(30:27):
We are all addicted tosomething that is generally bad
for us, and if there's someeffort underway, like keeping
cell phones out of schools, forinstance, I'm 100% in favor.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Well, thank you so much, Dr Collins, for coming on
the show.
I've really enjoyed ourconversation.
It's a big part of building aculture of conversation going
forward and it was reallyinspiring.
So I'll link the book below and, of course, this will be
released with the book cover aswell.
So guys get the book.
And again, thank you, DrCollins.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Well, thank you, Taylor, for doing this podcast.
I enjoyed being your guest.
You asked great questions.
Keep it up.