White House to honor prominent evolutionist

Orange County Register ^ | May 9, 02 | Gary Robbins

[laureldrive]

UCI's Ayala wins National Medal of Science

Researcher famous for work in genetics, evolutionary biology.

By GARY ROBBINS

The Orange County Register

May 9, 02

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The National Medal of Science – the most prestigious award given for lifetime achievement – will be bestowed upon a University of California, Irvine, researcher who has done pioneering work in genetics and evolutionary biology, the White House announced today.

Francisco Ayala, 68, is one of 15 scientists and engineers who will receive the medal from President George W. Bush during a ceremony expected to be held in mid-June in Washington, D.C.

Ayala will receive the medal along with such eminent figures as Harold Varmus, the Nobel laureate who formerly headed the National Institutes of Health, and Charles Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, a leader in global warming research.

"Each one of these individuals has helped advance our country's place as a leader in discovery, creativity and technology," President Bush said in a statement. "Their contributions have touched all of our lives and will continue to do so."

Ayala is the second UCI professor to win the National Science Medal. The late Frederick Reines, the "father of neutrino physics", was honored in 1983. A medal also was given to Corona del Mar instrument inventor Arnold O. Beckman in 1989.

Ayala is a former Dominican priest who left the clergy to study evolution and genetics. He achieved fame partly because of his work on the "molecular clock," a field in which scientists can date when some species diverged from a common ancestor. The timing of the clock involves analysis of DNA.

The Spanish-born biologist also is well-known for determining that some organisms have more genetic variation than predicted by sophisticated mathematical models.

Ayala was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1980. A year later, he and famed Harvard scholar Stephen Jay Gould testified for the defense in McLean v. the Arkansas Board of Education, the so-called "balanced-treatment law." A federal judge ruled on behalf of the plaintiff, saying that it was unconstitutional for Arkansas to require teachers to devote equal class time to creationism and evolution.

He joined the UCI faculty in 1987, raising the university's profile in evolutionary science. Fellow biologist Walter Fitch says Ayala's presence was a main reason that he joined the faculty the following year.

More recently, Ayala helped recruit Douglas Wallace, a world-renowned geneticist from Emory University. Irvine recruited Wallace with a $3 million package in February.

[gore3000]

Once the mother has given birth her genes are irrelevent. Socialization has made sure the child is taken care of well enough withought a mother.

Is your name Hillary?????

[medved]

Just goes to show that an evolutionist doesn't necessarily and logically have to become a nazi or a communist; there are other options. He could become a cannibal. That should make all evolutionists feel a bit better about themselves.

In fact, there are a couple of other options. For instance, female evolutionists could become welfare mothers, you know, the thing about "he who dies with the most offspring wins"...

[Bonaparte]

The tacit assumption (and central fallacy) of Ayala's criticism of ID is that God would only design us in conformity with our purposes and our convenience. In other words, God forgot to consult us before he proceeded to create us. Ayala is surely aware that no human invention is ever perfect, ie. it is always a trade-off. So why would he presume to give God instruction in what constitutes "perfect" design -- Ayala has no idea what perfection actually would look like or how it would play out in the real world that we actually live in. This "perfection" is in truth nothing but fantasy. It can't even be found in the designs of nature which consistently dwarf our own. In the real world, it is enough that a thing simply works.

[Junior]

But you would have thought God would've come up with a better design for such things as the back (an injury-prone compromise between the horizontal spine of other animals and one geared for an efficient upright stance) or for the eye (where the optic nerve blocks part of our field of vision).

[Bonaparte]

Why limit the complaint to the back and the eye? Virtually every part of the human body can and does develop problems. Many parts of the body are grossly inefficient. Look at the kidney. Arguably, the closest the body ever comes to physiological perfection is at age 12, and even then it has so many vulnerabilities. Of course, the worst thing of all about the body is that it is mortal, and that's what I believe all these other complaints come down to. Nobody who has ever lived has been capable of designing anything as complex, resilient, long-lasting and versatile as the human body -- and yet we all consider ourselves sufficiently expert at design to critique it. Armchair quarterbacking is apparently another built-in feature of homo sapiens.

[PatrickHenry]

Those who find medved's essays and links useful will also be delighted with these:

TIME CUBE .
The Earth is Not Moving!.
Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A Fraud! .
Flat Earth Society Homepage! .
Christian Answers Network.
Creationists' Cartoons .
Institute for Creation Research.
The Current State of Creation Astronomy.
Answers In Genesis .
THE MOON: A Propaganda Hoax .
CRANK DOT NET.

[Robert_Paulson2]

God never said "it is perfect" he said it was "good"... perfect means complete, not without compromises in design. A perfect car would have all the comfort of your house, and all the flexibility of a car... but it would not be an RV... or a HOUSE... in fact, the two are incompatible in an ultimately perfect transportation device that fits the definition of a car.

Sometimes "good" meant, "its plenty good enough for now" and God left it there. Part of evolution IS true, we were supposed to grow, adapt, expand and innovate our way around the compromises in our own design... based on our choices and preferences. PERFECTION of the ICE CUBE is pretty, but also pretty boring.

God forbid we be forced to endure boredom, and immortality in the icy realm of absolute perfection without opportunity for change and growth.

[Bonaparte]

"Evolution doesn't require perfection. God, on the other hand..."

I'm afraid not, mlo.

I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. [Gen 3:16]

A few verses later, he lets us know that our bodies will break down, will die and return to the dust from which we came. All sorts of difficulties and breakdowns. And the Bible is full of such references.

[Robert-J]

logjam, I'd think you'd be more happy posting over at democratic underground. Why don't you leave?

[Bonaparte]

"I guess Ayala hasn't heard the final word on the subject."

Oh, he's heard it, alright. He just doesn't accept it. He was ordained a Dominican priest in Spain in 1960. He lasted one year.

[Robert-J]

God forbid we be forced to endure boredom, and immortality in the icy realm of absolute perfection without opportunity for change and growth.

Good point. Life wasn't meant to be easy. Death, disease and even imperfections serve a purpose.

Just goes to show that scientists with PhDs are quite capable of being philosophical morons.

[Bonaparte]

"This award is given by a committee. We do not know who is on the committee, nor do we know how many are leftovers from the previous administration."

Here they are.

There are currently only 8 on the committee, plus an ex officio and a manager. The four vacancies are not explained. Cho (Lucent/Bell), Jaffe (Harvard/NAS), Neufeld (UCLA) and Lester (UCB) were all appointed by Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in late 2000. Faber, Preston, Zoback and the mysterious Patel are almost certainly Clinton picks as well, since each serves for 6 years.

[Bonaparte]

"The BIG error here is in linking evolution to religon in ANY way."

I have news for you, Waco. Evolution is a religion -- born of naturalism, the false idol of secular humanism. It's catechism is that man is god, we got here by accident, we have no purpose other than survival and reproduction, and there is no moral order in the universe.

[Bonaparte]

" I wonder if this will come up at the award ceremony at the White House?"

Don't count on it, LOL!

[Bonaparte]

"...then it needn't be perfect."

Or, put another way, it's perfect for its intended purpose.

[Bogey78O]

No, you missed my point.

[Bonaparte]

""Children, two plus two is not four because it doesn't say so in the bible. Those mathematicians are wicked!"

Funny you should cite mathematicians in your example. They, above all others, have exposed the unscientific basis of macroevolution.

[Bonaparte]

"Simply saying evolution passes along that which works well enough...is well...weak."

It's nice working with you, Brian. I point out their religion's catechesis and now you point up their dogmatics. It's all there, isn't it? Except for God.

[Junior]

The problem with your contention is that we are born with the back and eye problems -- they don't develop as we age. If you believe in Adam and Eve, they had these problems from the moment they were zapped into existence. Evolution has no problem with the cobbled-together aspect of the human body -- as a matter of fact such an aspect would be expected of the trial-and-error approach of evolution. However, for folks who believe man was made physically in the image of God there are some decidedly nasty implications of our physical inefficiencies.

[Junior]

logjam, I'd think you'd be more happy posting over at democratic underground. Why don't you leave?

You can be a conservative and accept the facts of evolution, you know (or maybe you don't). Hell, you can be a Christian and accept evolution. There are a number of us right here on these threads.