Do you think Science and Religion can co-exist in a society?

[FatAndFaithless]

Yup, another way to avoid any conflict is to say that any scientific discovery or advancement only shows how great god is in the first place.

Side note: Collins isn't the head of the HGP any more (since that's over), he's actually the Director of the NIH as a whole.  I work at the NIH and I've met him a few times.  Immensely intelligent man, I just think he tacks on God too much - though that literally never comes up ever in decisions or discussions at the NIH.  He's a scientist doing science, just with some private views that I think are misinformed.

But that just illustrates the point.  If you can structure your religious beliefs in such a way that there is no conflict by definition (science being a demonstration of god, for example), then sure, you can't disprove that.  But that claim that science is a demonstration of god is itself unfalsifiable and untestable, which is the only way to go if you want to make the round peg of religion fit the square hole of science.

Collins said he was converted to Christianity after reading CS Lewis's "Mere Christianity". I guess it did not take much. That book is dull yet so many Christians find the statement that Christ was a liar, insane, or the Son of God to be  a brilliant piece of logic. Merely a myth , maybe?

Well, he also cites his experience of hiking by Niagara Falls and seeing three frozen streams as indicative of the Holy Trinity.  When he's doing science he's an objectively brilliant man.  The religion part seems to just be in entirely separate area for him - which is fine as far as science is concerned in terms of not being a "conflict." The key point is that his religion doesn't make claims about reality that can be investigated - which is the only way that religion can "coexist" with science.

Him and Hitchens were actually pretty good friends.