Francisco Ayala wins Templeton 2010
Evolutionary geneticist, molecular biologist and former monk Francisco Ayala was selected for the Templeton 2010 prize for his championing of the separation of science and religion.
But where does Ayala stand on evolution? On the one hand, he strongly opposes the teaching of creationism alongside evolution; he has refuted creationism and intelligent design in favor of Darwin’s theory of natural select. But he’s not an atheist: “There is nothing in biology that inevitably leads to humans,” he says, “so we are here because of God’s providence.”
Ayala subscribes to the process theology school of thought which states that a correlation exists between God’s action in the world and the moral capacities of the world’s creature, although God does not exert unilateral control of the actions or events that occur. God’s influence is not coercive or deterministic, but persuasive, changing and evolving over the course of time in response worldly events. Woah.
