Francisco José Ayala (1934–2023)

En la línea de Ciencia para Nicolás y de Neurociencia para Julia, el gran biólogo evolucionista hispano-norteamericano Francisco J. Ayala nos ofrece en este libro un resumen de la evolución en un lenguaje muy accesible y dirigido especialmente a los jóvenes. El origen evolutivo de los organismos es hoy una conclusión científica establecida con un grado de certeza comparable a otros conceptos científicos ciertos, como la redondez de la Tierra, la revolución de los planetas alrededor del Sol o la composición molecular de la materia. Este grado de certeza, que va más allá de toda duda razonable, es lo que señalan los biólogos cuando afirman que la evolución es un hecho. En este libro vamos a explorar cuestiones importantes sobre la evolución de la vida en la Tierra. Algunos capítulos tratan cuestiones históricas. Otros ofrecen datos que demuestran que la evolución ha ocurrido y cómo lo ha hecho. Hay capítulos dedicados a las explicaciones teóricas que dan cuenta de los procesos evolutivos, profundizando en detalles particularmente importantes. Y otros que tratan cuestiones fundamentales de la vida humana, como el origen de los valores morales.… (mehr)

Ayala's intention, as one might guess from the book's title, is to demonstrate that a rejection of evolution is not just bad science but bad theology. As with, it seems, so many books these days, he spends most of his time talking about matters other than his stated topic, in this instance with lengthy explanations of natural selection and the many ways in which it has been shown beyond doubt that "Darwinism" is the way thinks work, and with extremely competent dissections of the pretensions of the IDiots. All of this stuff is very well done and, not only was I greatly absorbed and entertained, I learned quite a deal that was new to me; especially useful were his discussions of the precursors of the modern ID movement -- people like William Paley, whose ID hypotheses might well have been woefully wrong but who was at least doing his best within the boundaries of the science available in his age.

But what of the 10% or so of the book, maybe less, that focuses on Ayala's supposed subject matter? His primary contention seems to be that evolutionary theory does theology a great service by solving at a stroke the theodicy problem -- that is, the problem of having to explain why a benevolent and omnipotent God permits so much cruelty and evil in the world. The argument goes that all this cruelty and evil we see around us is a natural consequence of the way that natural selection works, and therefore not God's fault -- even though it was God who chose to use natural selection as a means of producing the living world we know, us included.

In other words, thanks to evolution and natural selection, theologians would no longer need to trouble their heads about David Hume's famous quibble, summarizing Epicurus:

Is [God:] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is   impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?

It's difficult to follow this rationale, because it seems that -- evolution or no -- Hume's first two questions seem answerable only thus: "He's either unwilling or unable or both." The problem is that, outside the human species (and possibly one or two others) the concept of evil has no meaning, as neither does the concept of good. For sure, the operation of natural selection is immensely cruel and immensely wasteful, but there's nothing evil involved: that's just the way evolution works. On the other hand, it can be argued that, if God has indeed chosen to operate His planet through the mechanism of natural selection, with all its necessary suffering, then there is evil involved.

Or is the argument that human beings became infected by evil through evolutionary happenstance? But, if so, surely an omniscient God would have known this could happen and taken steps to insure against it.

What Ayala and his teachers seem to be arguing for is an ever-diminishing role for God, who is blameless for all disagreeable things because, heck, they're outside His province. But if God doesn't do anything, and if He isn't responsible for anything, what reason can there be for His existence at all? Even if one argues that, Him being God and all, He doesn't need a reason for existence, the related question remains: What reason can there be to believe in the existence of a God who takes no part in the running of His Creation and washes His hands of anything in it that goes awry? It's as if Ayala and his cohorts were calling on the principle of the God of the Gaps and then making the Gap infinitesimally small.

This same issue seems to arise when he claims:

However, we know some basic features that account for human distinctness and therefore can serve as foundations for a  religious view of humankind: the large brain and the accelerated rate of evolution of genes such as those involved in human speech. (p110)

So God's role was to wait some billions of years while natural selection did its stuff and then, a few thousand years ago, to intercede in order to speed up the evolution of particular genes and increase cranial capacity, after which He pushed off and left us to our own devices? This sounds very much like Intelligent Design, which is what Ayala elsewhere roundly (and rightly) disparages; moreover it again leaves God with only a very small Gap within which to operate. If I've misunderstood Ayala and this isn't at all what he means, then of course we're back to the Hume/Epicurus dilemma.

It's at about this time that I expect someone to come charging in to tell me that if only I'd studied theology a bit more exhaustively I wouldn't be making any of these foolish observations, to which my response must be: I can read all the fairy stories in the world and that still won't convince me that fairies exist, or that the hypothesis of a fairies-populated world makes internally consistent sense -- or any sense at all.

They say that the sign of a good book (or movie or play, whatever) is how much you talk about it afterwards, even if the "talk" takes the form of an internal conversation. Ayala's book is good enough that, as well as being a very pleasurable and stimulating read, it made me think. I suppose that for many that won't excuse the fact that so much of the text is, as it were, off-topic; but it's okay by me. As I'm sure everyone has frequently remarked, digressions are often the best bits.… (mehr)

Ayala's short book, a required reading for one of my classes, describes the background of evolution and the Christian response to it. Much of this should be incontroversial: Darwin in his novel theory of natural selection was attempting to provide a scientific explanation for appearance of design rather than Paley's invocation of God to explain a natural order. Ayala briefly discusses the evidence for evolution from the fossil record, comparative anatomy, embryonic development, molecular biology, and "the geography of life." He debunks certain intelligent design or anti-evolution arguments, such as the claim that we lack key transitional species in the fossil record. We don't. We have clear and detailed records of hominid evolution from ardipithecus to homo erectus, habilis, and sapiens. We also have fossil evidence for the transitional species between fish and tetrapods (tiktaalik) and between reptiles and birds (archaeopteryx). Furthermore, we have an abundance of literature on key questions that IDers argue no "Darwinist" has ever answered, such as the evolution of bacterial flagellum and the human eye.

However, Ayala is less luminous when discussing more philosophical issues. While he does give some good reasons why intelligent design is not science - its hypotheses are untestable and unfalsifiable - he doesn't do as good a job explaining why religion and science don't conflict. He gives the NOMA theory: science and religion cover different territory so don't conflict. He cites Aquinas and John Paul II for this point. But what about Pius XII's contention that while evolution is true, there must have been a point where God put a soul into a hominid species. Is this in the territory of science? In this and other ways, Christianity holds that God is not some allegorical figure we encounter in the depths of our soul, but a being that acts in the universe in observable ways. God cures people from illness, not natural causes. While Ayala is right that Darwin bestowed a gift onto theology by explaining the violence and suffering intrinsic in the natural world is not caused by God's creation but by un-designed natural selection, he seems to miss other crucial issues that lie at the root of different methodologies for examining reality: one methodologically naturalistic, one open to miracles and divine intervention. And what about the belief of some Christians that the universe has the appearance of age, created with fossils in place, but is in fact only 6000 years old? Perhaps I am being too harsh with his brevity, but Ayala misses these key issues.… (mehr)

Una obra breve, incisiva, que se lee en un día pero da respuestas para entender toda una vida. Toda una lección de sabiduría por uno de los más importantes científicos españoles. A partir de la pregunta que da título al libro, Ayala explica con claridad que la ciencia y la religión no son términos contradictorios, sino complementarios, formas diferentes de conocer el mundo. Desmenuza y divulga las líneas básicas y los fundamentos de la evolución y explica cómo funciona el proceso evolutivo.… (mehr)