Source:
Vancouver SunKnown among scientists as the Renaissance man of evolutionary biology, Francisco J. Ayala has won this year's prestigious, and lucrative, Templeton Prize for his life's work trumpeting the notion that science and religion are compatible.
After being named the winner of the world's largest academic award at a news conference in Washington, D.C., Thursday, the California-based biologist and philosopher described the ever polarizing approaches to life as merely two windows into the same world.
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"It is only when assertions are made beyond their legitimate boundaries that religion and science, and evolutionary theory in particular, appear to be antithetical," he said.
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Ayala said he plans to donate the entire prize to charity. Part of it will most likely go to the University of California, Irvine where the evolutionary geneticist and molecular biologist has spent the last 23 years teaching and doing research. Noting both the National Academy of Sciences and the Center for Theology and Natural Science were behind his nomination, Ayala said he would likely give part of his windfall to those institutions as well.
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Read more:
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Evolutionary+biologist+wins+Templeton+Prize/2725119/story.html
From the NAS website:
http://notes.nap.edu/2010/03/25/francisco-j-ayala-awarded-2010-templeton-prizeFrancisco J. Ayala Awarded 2010 Templeton Prize
March 25, 2010 | View Comments
By Barbara Kline Pope, Executive Director for Communications and The National Academies Press
We congratulate National Academy of Sciences member Francisco J. Ayala for winning the 2010 Templeton Prize. Dr. Ayala is 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. The Prize, announced at a news conference at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, honors a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.
In nominating Ayala for the Prize, Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, recounted the broad influence of Ayala’s scientific teaching and writings, including more than 1,000 papers and 35 books, adding, “A pervasive message of several of these publications is that science is a way of knowing, but it is not the only way. The significance and purpose of the world and human life, as well as matters concerning moral or religious values, transcend science.”
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More links here:
http://www.nas.edu/morenews/20100325.htmlNAS Member Francisco Ayala Wins Templeton Prize
March 25, 2010 -- The winner of this year’s $1.5 million Templeton Prize is NAS member Francisco Ayala, a biologist, evolutionary geneticist, and philosopher at the University of California, Irvine. Ayala is best-known for developing highly accurate ways to measure rates of evolution and the amount of genetic change needed to produce new species over millions or even billions of years. He has also devoted much of his life to discussing the relationship between religion and science, and chaired the committee that authored Science, Evolution, and Creationism, a recent book by the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine that describes current scientific understanding of evolution and its importance in the science classroom.
* Video of News Conference
* News Release
* Biography
LA Times article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-templeton-prize26-2010mar26,0,1500604.storyUC Irvine's Francisco Ayala wins Templeton Prize
The researcher and ordained priest espouses the idea that the theory of evolution is consistent with the Christian faith. He will donate the $1.6-million prize to charity.
By Mitchell Landsberg
March 25, 2010 | 8:02 a.m.
As a young doctoral student in the 1960s, Francisco Ayala was surprised to learn that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution appeared to be less widely accepted in the United States than in his native Spain, then a profoundly conservative and religious country.
Ayala brought a unique sensibility to the topic, because he had been ordained as a Catholic priest before undertaking graduate studies in evolution and genetics. What he believed then, and has spent his career espousing, is that evolution is consistent with the Christian faith.
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Ayala, 76, has been at the forefront of efforts to defend Darwin's theory from attacks by Christian fundamentalists, many of whom favor the notion of intelligent design, which is consistent with a literal reading of the biblical creation story and holds that the world is too complex to have evolved without oversight by a supreme being.
He was the primary author of "Science, Evolution and Creationism," a publication of the National Academy of Science that attempted to boil down the argument in favor of Darwin. He also is the author of numerous other publications, including the book, "Darwin's Gift to Science and Religion," which expands on his pro-evolution argument and attempts to knock down intelligent design, which he says is either "bad science or not science at all."
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"He's a major figure in the field," said UC Irvine colleague John Avise, who was Ayala's student during his own doctoral studies in the 1970s. "He was one of the early pioneers of molecular methods in population biology, so he got in sort on the ground floor of the molecular revolution that took place back in the 1960s and early 1970s."
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