Francisco J. Ayala Wins the 2010 Templeton Prize
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Photo: Mark Finkenstaedt Francisco J. Ayala at the Templeton Prize news conference |
Francisco J. Ayala, an evolutionary geneticist and molecular biologist who has vigorously opposed the entanglement of science and religion while also calling for mutual respect between the two, was named the winner of the 2010 Templeton Prize at a news conference last week at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. “It is only when assertions are made beyond their legitimate boundaries that religion and science—and evolutionary theory in particular—appear to be antithetical," Ayala said in a brief statement. "Science and religion are like two different windows through which we look at the world. We see different aspects of reality through them, but the world at which we look is only one and the same.” (Videos of the news conference and of several Big Questions interviews with Ayala can be found here.)
A native of Spain who became an American citizen, Ayala has been a pioneer in molecular evolution and genetics, as well as a leading philosopher of science. A professor at the University of California, Irvine, he has published over 1,000 scientific papers and has played a key national role in science education. He is perhaps best known for his robust defense of evolutionary theory against the claims of creationists and advocates of “intelligent design.” Ayala was nominated for the Templeton Prize by leaders of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. "His publications show the power of science as a way of knowing and the significance and purpose of the world and human life, as well as matters concerning moral or religious values that transcend science," wrote Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the NAS.
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| VIDEO: Big Questions interviews with the 2010 Templeton Prize winner |
Ayala’s honor received wide media coverage, including reports in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Times of London, the Christian Science Monitor, and the leading Spanish dailies El País and El Mundo. The journal Science hailed Ayala's winning of the Prize as confirmation of the Templeton Foundation's growing role in the mainstream of American science, and the Discover magazine blogger Chris Mooney observed that there was “no better demonstration" than Ayala's career "that science and religion don’t have to be at war all the time.”
At the Templeton Prize announcement, the former NAS president Bruce M. Alberts called Ayala "the leading crusader against damage and confusion caused when religious movements attempt to substitute meanings for scientific understanding." Dr. Jack Templeton, president and chairman of the Templeton Foundation, said that "Ayala’s clear voice in matters of science and faith echoes the Foundation’s belief that evolution of the mind and truly open-minded inquiry can lead to real spiritual progress in the world."
A former priest in the Roman Catholic Dominican order, Ayala chose to study science in the 1950s after reading The Phenomenon of Man, an influential book by the French priest-paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He recently told the Guardian columnist Mark Vernon that his move from the priesthood to a full-time scientific career gave him, in Vernon’s words, "a sense of continuity rather than disruption." Both science and religion, Ayala said in the interview, seek to understand what it means to be human, only on different planes.
Ayala’s most recent book, Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, makes the case that evolution offers a more theologically satisfying explanation for the presence of evil in the world, relieving God of responsibility for the many flawed designs in nature. Ayala joins the ranks of such distinguished recent Templeton Prize laureates as physicist Bernard d’Espagnat (2009), priest-cosmologist Michael Heller (2008), and philosopher Charles Taylor (2007).
The 2010 Templeton Prize will be presented on May 5 by Prince Philip in a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace. Ayala intends to donate the entire award, approximately $1.5 million, to charity. He indicated that the National Academy of Sciences and the Center for Theology and Natural Science would be among the beneficiaries.
From Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion by Francisco J. Ayala:
Science is a way of knowing, but it is not the only way. Knowledge also derives from other sources, such as common sense, artistic and religious experience, and philosophical reflection. In "The Myth of Sisyphus," the great French writer Albert Camus asserted that we learn more about ourselves and the world from a relaxed evening’s perception of the starry heavens and the scents of grass than from science’s reductive ways.... Astonishing to me is the assertion made by some scientists and others that there is no valid knowledge outside science. I respond with a witticism that I once heard from a friend: “In matters of values, meaning, and purpose, science has all the answers, except the interesting ones.”
