Francis Collins: re-enchanting wisdom

Covid, faith, polarised politics and the battle for truth.

Nick Jones

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

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Francis Collins is a physician and geneticist whose groundbreaking work has led to the discovery of the cause of cystic fibrosis among other diseases. He led the Human Genome Project which first sequenced the entire human DNA, established the science-faith organisation BioLogos, and has gone on to serve three US presidents as the director of the National Institutes of Health.

Francis’ new book is titled The Road To Wisdom: On truth, science, faith and trust and covers some of the controversies and challenges he has faced personally in his public role as a scientist and government advisor leading the USA’s Covid response during the height of the pandemic.

In the light of the 2024 presidential election Justin and Belle talk to Francis about whether we can re-enchant truth, trust and wisdom in an increasingly polarised world. Francis Collins:

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Re-enchanting

4 June 2025

1 min read

Re-enchanting... the end of the world - Alex Evans

New episode. In a perma-crisis era do climate change, war, technology, immigration and extremism threaten to destabilise the world?

Nick Jones

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

A video grab of a man talking with text beside him reading: it's not the end of the world.

Alex Evans is the founder and Executive Director of Larger Us - a community of change-makers seeking to bridge divides and bring people together. Alex has previously worked as a think tank researcher, as a special adviser to two cabinet ministers, in the UN Secretary-General’s office and as a consultant for organisations from Oxfam to the US National Intelligence Council.

It’s given Alex a perspective on just how bad things can be in the world. Many have described our era as a ‘polycrisis’ or ‘permacrisis', as climate change, war, technology, immigration and the rise of extremism threaten to destabilise the world.

So how do we deal with 24 hour doom-scrolling? And how can Christian faith speak to a world where everything seems to be falling apart?

Last year Alex began a Substack titled ’The Good Apocalypse Guide’ about how we can survive and thrive to unlock a 'breakthrough' rather than 'breakdown' future.

Alex joins Belle and Justin as they attempt to re-enchant… the end of the world.

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