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

[Whateverist]

Frances Collins is a Christian fundamentalist and the Director of The Human Genome Project. He seems to be able to juggle his religion and scientific work.

"As someone who's had the privilege of leading the human genome project, I've had the opportunity to study our own DNA instruction book at a level of detail that was never really possible before. It's also now been possible to compare our DNA with that of many other species. The evidence supporting the idea that all living things are descended from a common ancestor is truly overwhelming. I would not necessarily wish that to be so, as a Bible-believing Christian. But it is so. It does not serve faith well to try to deny that."

I could call him an irrational twit but he is way smarter and more rational than me.

He is a fine example to show that one who embraces theistic beliefs can also participate in doing real science.  There is no necessary barrier.  It just so happens that many fundamentalists hold too many empirical claims as basic to their theist beliefs.  It is that rather than their belief in a god that makes them at odds with science.

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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?

My suspicion is that he was raised in a Christian milieu but focused primarily on science.  Later, perhaps triggered by reading Lewis, he found that he was disposed to embrace theism?