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| Darwin's Gift: to Science and Religion | 
| Author: Francisco Ayala
Publisher: Joseph Henry Press
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 261597
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
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Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.8 x 1.1
ISBN: 0309102316
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.8
EAN: 9780309102315
ASIN: 0309102316
Publication Date: April 23, 2007
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Book Description
With the publication in 1859 of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Charles Darwin established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation for nature’s diversity. This was to be his gift to science and society?at last, we had an explanation for how life came to be on Earth.
Scientists agree that the evolutionary origin of animals and plants is a scientific conclusion beyond reasonable doubt. They place it beside such established concepts as the roundness of the earth, its revolution around the sun, and the molecular composition of matter. That evolution has occurred, in other words, is a fact.
Yet as we approach the bicentennial celebration of Darwin’s birth, the world finds itself divided over the truth of evolutionary theory. Consistently endorsed as “good science” by experts and overwhelmingly accepted as fact by the scientific community, it is not always accepted by the public?and our schools continue to be battlegrounds for this conflict. From the Tennessee trial of a biology teacher who dared to teach Darwin’s theory to his students in 1925 to Tammy Kitzmiller’s 2005 battle to keep intelligent design out of the Dover district schools in Pennsylvania, it’s clear that we need to cut through the propaganda to quell the cacophony of raging debate.
With the publication of Darwin’s Gift, a voice at once fresh and familiar brings a rational, measured perspective to the science of evolution. An acclaimed evolutionary biologist with a background in theology, Francisco Ayala offers clear explanations of the science, reviews the history that led us to ratify Darwin’s theories, and ultimately provides a clear path for a confused and conflicted public.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
Superb explanation. Too bad fundamentalists can't read. September 17, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Since I became an atheist by recognizing the absurdity of the God concept long before I learned about evolution (which was taboo in schools until 1968), it was simply a breathtaking revelation about the coherence of life. Too late for a career move, biology became fascinating. As Ayala points out, evolution and religion are separate magesteria in the sense that they are independent. Only ignorant cramped interpretations of s few lines in some old religious tomes open the door to conflict; in monotheistic systems, it requires unquestioning subservience to a dreadfully simple yet psychotic sex-obsessed robot-god. Any real god (an oxymoron, but imagine) would design by genetic programming, and could easily leave just the fossil record we find. No conflict.
Where Ayala goes wrong is the assertion that science (not just evolution) has nothing to say about religion. The variations and deadly conflicts illustrate the fact that there is no such thing as consistent "religious" values, morality, or anything else, and that alone means there is no "magisterium" about it. Science, on the other hand, does offer a coherent framework for understanding the world. It tells us a lot about what sets of values, morality, etc. are likely to enhance happiness, survival, etc. The return to absolute monarchs or warlords is not the answer, although religion is likely to lead us back to that level or to extinction. Science gives humans alone the chance to transcend the evolutionary paradigm for survival while religion would doom us to both biological Darwinism and the "Social Darwinism" beloved by fundamentalists.
Ayala is right about evolution, wrong about science, soft on religion.
 Gift or gloom? July 28, 2008
What the title calls Darwin's gift to science and religion is by the author in his last sentence described--in his characteristic superlatives for Darwin--as "nothing if not a fundamental vision that has forever changed how mankind perceives itself and its place in the universe". Is it "forever"? And what is its "gift"?
Earlier (p.159) the author says regarding "imperfection, dysfunction, and cruelty in the living world": "Evolution came to the rescue...Indeed a major burden was removed from the shoulders of believers when convincing evidence was advanced that the design of organisms need not be attributed to the immediate agency of the Creator, but rather is an outcome of natural processes". Is this a "rescue"? Was a "major burden" removed?
Whatever those complaints about the world, they remain. Moreover, in the subsequent chapter the author tries to reconcile science with religion: "they may be seen as complementary. Questions about the meaning and purpose of the world and of human life transcend science. Religion answers them" (p.160). Accepting thus the possibility of God in a deistic sense, does it matter whether the complained about is the "immediate" or mediate product of God? The author's argument disposes neither of the objects of complaint nor of their attribution to God.
He of course directly attributes the living world to evolution, specifically to random mutation and natural selection, the latter as "nonrandom" (p.60). The last distinction is unenlightening. Natural selection like random mutation "has no foresight, nor does it operate according to some preconceived plan" (p.70). In other words, "mutation" and "selection" are alike the operation of a blind "natural process" on the organism, which survives or perishes depending on how affected by that process.
This hardly seems to account for the perpetual adaptation of live organisms. The human eye has been a favorite subject in these arguments; is it purposely designed or the result of accidents? "Intelligent-design" proponents argue the eye is irreducibly complex: it doesn't function with any component missing, and all components couldn't have assembled by accident. Author Ayala, with other Darwinists, says (p.145): "components of living beings...do not come about suddenly...Evolutionists have shown that...less complex versions...have existed in the past and can be found in today's organisms". This omits one complexity factor, however. If something like the human eye can function without some of its components, granted lesser versions exist, it must be shown, because of the gradual nature of evolution, that the eye functions without one of its components. Even on being more liberal and assuming several components missing at once, although the gradual mutation makes their sudden appearance highly improbable, the eye must be shown to function without them.
But there is far more comprehensive evidence of purpose in organisms, as I have tried to show in these reviews and is among subjects discussed in detail in my On Proof for Existence of God, and Other Reflective Inquiries. As a major influence on Darwin, the tradition of William Paley's analogy of organisms with functional human artifacts has overlooked the additional attribute of life in the former. Unlike artifacts, living beings behave purposefully, specifically in the direction of their survival. It is not only known that their structure SERVES purposes, but that they ACT with purpose. Purposive action in organisms is observed, rather than it or its absence being hypothesized.
This leads me to author Ayala's discussion of the hypothetico-deductive method (p.194) or theories. He objects (p.139) that opponents to evolution "declare that it is 'only' a theory and not a fact...When scientists talk about the 'theory' of evolution, they use the word differently than people do in ordinary speech. In everyday speech, theory often means 'guess' or 'hunch'...". My understanding is that "theory" is not an ordinary word but is appropriated from science, where it does mean a supposition, if an educated one. The author indeed embarks on a questionable theory of knowledge. He criticizes (p.196) the use of the word "laws" for Mendel's, the famous botanist's, discoveries; ironically, his quotation (p.31) from Darwin's autobiography speaks of the "law of natural selection". More significantly, in order to elevate the status of theories, he downgrades the fundamental reasoning process of induction, of inferring a principle (law) of nature from repeated instances.
He writes (p.184) that induction "may be exemplified as follows. A scientist measuring and recording everything that confronts him observes a tree with leaves...and many [other trees]...all observed to have leaves. Eventually he formulates a universal statement, 'All trees have leaves'". Author Ayala protests (p.185): "no scientist works without any preconceived plan as to what kind of phenomena to observe". Of course; and nobody holds induction to be inference from "everything that confronts" us. Induction is the very process of (p.188) "empirical testing, a process that must include the possibility of 'empirical falsification'" and which the author insists on for support of theories or hypotheses. What he seems unaware of is that the hypothetico-deductive method of science contains the weakness of a fallacy. If a hypothesis A (natural selection) appears to imply B (adaptation), it does not follow that B (adaptation) implies A (natural selection). That is to say, theory is subordinate to reliable observation.
My marking four stars for the book is owing to the author's informative descriptions of many biological details--notwithstanding his opinions about intelligence behind them--and to his apparently sincere generosity allowing spheres of value beyond the physical sciences.
Does It Do What It Sets Out to Do? April 22, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
With "Darwin's Gift," biologist Francisco Ayala sets out to convince his readers of two points: (a) evolution and religion need not be in conflict; and (b) that evolutionary theory is actually a good complment to religious belief.
Teh first claim is mostly uncontroversial, at least as long as one believes in a figurative interpretation of the bible, rather than a literal one. Ayala revives Steven Jay Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria claim (NOMA) that religion and science occupy different 'domains,' - science handles the world of natural fact, and religion handles the world of non-material values (and "why" questions).
I am not religous, but if I was, I am quite sure that I would find this somewhat insulting. Yes, religion gives people meaning, but does it not also claim to have a factual basis? Does religion not claim that we all come from a higher power, but that this higher power created us in some particular way - in some particular fashion? And if so, what happens when science comes along and disproves that story (as it has with the six day story and woman being created from man's rib). So if I were religious, I would find the view that my religion is compatible with science INSOFAR AS it does not make fact claims, but limits itself to claims of values, a bit insulting and dismissive.
Next point: Ayala tries to convince us that evolutionary theory offers a good supplement to religious faith because it offers a way for religions to explain what they never could: faulty design in nature. Interesting angle, but it is not iron clad.
The dilemma is this. Intelligent design theory (the theory that Ayala takes the bigggest aim at) only claims that a designer must have been involved; it does not get into claims about that designer. So what if Ayala can show that the designer was a bumbler (by looking at such strange designs as the human eye with all of its kinks and quirks). And who cares, even, if we can show that the designer is probably twisted (what kind of designer would design something capable of muscular dystrophy, which has to be the most cruel disease known to humankind)? All ID says is that there was a designer; anything more, William Demski points out, is a theological matter.
Of course, even though Ayala's point is not iron clad, it is still quite solid on this score. After all, the human eye COULD have been designed, but it appears more and more to be the work of multiple 'designers' over long periods of time making gradual improvements by tinkering. Sound familiar? Evolution.
And when we look at many of the world's designs as pointed to by intelligent design theorists, we see forms that may look somewhat designed (evolution can account for that just as easily as ID), but forms that look like they have been gradually tinkered with and modified over time (evolution can explain that BETTER than can ID). We need only look at the eye, with all of its post-hoc wirings, or the brain, with all of its seperate compartments and parts, all of which are wired together much the way a stero system would be wired if bought piecemeil.
Anyhow, Ayala wraps this discussion into a rather brief survey of the evidence for evolution, which - suprise, suprise - he finds quite solid. Ckontras this with the 'evidence' for intelligent design, which has been easily refuted on more than many occasions. No transitional forms? That is absolute baloney, and Ayala points out at least twenty transitional forms that somewhow never make it into ID literature. DNA is too complex to be anything other than designed? Again, Ayala points out that a good reading of DNA reveals that it very much resembles a book written not all at once, but gradual and piecemeal (with some genes being turned off by other genes, etc.)
Ultimately, I give Ayala's efforts 3 stars out of 5. I don't find many of its arguments convincing (nor did I when SJ Gould wrote many of them in his book "Rock of Ages"). I seriously doubt he will change many minds with this one, and I see his arguments against ID to be some of the weaker arguments that have been leveled (again, ID speculates only that there is a designer, so saying that the designer is faulty does not disprove ID, which cares not to speculate about the abilities/competencies of the creator).
There are better books.
Ayala's Gift March 17, 2008
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Ayala's book would be a good introduction to the evolution/Intelligent Design dispute. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone looking for more than the basics though.
The introductory chapter sets up Ayala's contention that evolution is a solution to Christianity's theodicy problem, i.e., how to reconcile the existence of evil with God's omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence. Ayala's bottom-line is that evil is not part of God's direct design, but rather is a by-product of the operation of the universe. That seems glib to me, but no more so than most of the other theologizing I've seen.
Chapter 2 outlines some of the early arguments from design, from Augustine (late 4th century), to Aquinas (13th century), to John Ray (late 17th century), and finally Paley's 1802 masterpiece.
Chapter 3 outlines the basics of Darwin's theory, particularly its attempts to answer Paley by showing that the appearance of design could be explained in natural terms, without invoking design, as the result of populations of organisms continuously adapting over time to ever-changing environments.
Chapter 4 focuses specifically on evolution's mutation-selection process. Mendel's early discoveries in genetics, sadly ignored for decades, are discussed, as well as a helpful example of how a seemingly impossible evolutionary adaptation, acquiring both resistance to streptomycin and the ability to survive without the key amino acid histidine, is actually so easy that bacteria can accomplish it in less than a week.
Chapter 5 discusses Darwin's main lines of evidence, with some updating of the details. The fossil record, biogeography, and homologies of anatomy and embryology are all briefly sketched.
Chapter 6 reviews the evolution of human anatomy, brain, and culture.
Chapter 7 reviews the "smoking gun" of evolution, molecular biology, which reveals both the unity of life in its reliance on DNA and also the evolutionary pathways that produced the diversity of life forms. Ayala also discusses the molecular clock hypothesis.
Chapter 8 focuses on Intelligent Design arguments. Ayala exposes the "evolution is just a theory" argument and the fatally flawed logic of ID's false dichotomy. (Also see my review of "What's Darwin Got To Do With It.") Ayala also discusses Behe's irreducible complexity (IC) in some detail. Focusing on the eye was probably not the best choice, since Behe himself would probably not classify the eye as IC, but plenty of other ID-advocates do, so it's not a completely inappropriate choice. And Ayala does address ID's classic example of IC, the flagellum, in some detail, so it's a pretty good summary. In particular, the footnotes indicate that a 2007 article on the stepwise formation of the flagellar system is awaiting publication by the National Academy of Sciences. Stay tuned for that!
Chapter 8 also discusses some apparently imperfect designs, oddities, and appalling cruelty in nature. Ayala argues that attributing such things to God is bad theology.
Chapter 9 discusses the perceived -- emphasis on "perceived" -- contradiction between evolution and God, and reviews the history both of educated Christianity's response to evolution and creationist opposition. There is also a brief discussion of some of the key court decisions in cases involving public school education.
Chapter 10 was an interesting discussion of the difference between ordinary induction and the hypothetico-deductive method used in science, with particular emphasis on the importance of testing, something which ID-advocates simply ignore, probably (IMO) because ID doesn't generate any testable hypotheses.
All in all, an interesting, easy to read introduction to some of the key issues and historical background.
 Did Homo Sapiens Evolve From Apes? March 9, 2008
3 out of 19 found this review helpful
The following quote from Francisco J. Ayala shows people of faith in the 19th century were right to be concerned about the discovery of evolution and parents are right today to be concerned about what their children are being taught in biology classes:
"Two major puzzles of human evolution remain. One puzzle is the genetic basis of the ape-to-human transformation...The other puzzle is the brain-to-mind transformation. We know that the 30 billion neurons in our brains communicate between themselves and with other nerve cells by chemical and electrical signals. How do these signals become transformed into perceptions, feelings, ideas, critical arguments, aesthetic emotions, and ethical and religious values? And how, out of this diversity of experiences, does a unitary reality emerge, the mind or self? The soul created by God, you might say, accounts for both transformations: ape to human and brain to mind. This religious answer may be satisfactory for believers, but it is not scientifically satisfactory. I still want to know how the anatomical and behavioral traits that differentiate us from apes emerge out of our genetic differences; I also want to know the biological correlates that account for mental experiences." (p. 10)
What Professor Ayala, a chief witness in the trial in Arkansas against creationism in 1981, calls the "brain-to-mind transformation" is usually described as the mind-body dichotomy or problem. The problem gives rise to a personal question touching on our experience of guilt and blame: What is the relationship between ourselves and our bodies? This question arises because we have the ability to transcend ourselves and become the subject of own knowledge. It also gives us an experience of God as the infinite abyss surrounding ourselves when we contemplate our own existence. That we have free will and conscious knowledge is an existential truth, not a scientific truth, coming from this transcendence.
Two other ways to express this transcendental knowledge is to say that we are rational animals and that we have souls. These statements are true because human beings are indefinabilties that become conscious of their own existence. A statement with more content is that human beings are embodied spirits. Anyone denying our immateriality can be confronted with the unanswerable existential questions: What is free will? What is conscious knowledge? What are ideas and other mental constructs?
Ayala mentions the mysteries existentialism invites us to inquire about, but he does not choose to ask existential questions. He asks only scientific questions: How do signals from nerve cells transform into ideas, the mind, and the self? He rejects existentialism and a transcendental level of knowledge, perhaps, because of a fear of mystery and a fear of the infinite. Or, he might derive satisfaction from the simplification that the scientific method can render the universe intelligible. In any case, his scientism is nothing but a superstition that places a barrier between himself and the incomprehensible and infinite One.
The "religious answer" to the question of whether human beings evolved from apes can be found in Humani Generis (Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Pius XII). This 1950 encyclical says that the evolution of human beings refers only to our bodies and that our souls are created by God. The pope also said that regardless of what evolutionary theories there are about polygenism, the Roman Catholic Church knows from the Bible that all human beings descended from Adam. That the whole man--body and soul--did not evolve from apes was considered by the Holy Father to be a scientific and existential truth knowable by reason alone.
Luckily for the Roman Catholic Church, recent research indicates Homo sapiens entered history in Africa, which means monogenism and the doctrine of original sin are safe. The pope's idea that evolution only applies to the bodies of human beings is supported by any textbook about evolution. Biology textbooks are concerned with science, not existentialism. Biology textbooks don't say, as does Ayala, that the existence of the human soul is a matter of religious belief.
The next quote shows that Ayala does not understand Christian existentialism and fundamental dogmas of the Christian faith:
"Similarly, at the personal level of the individual, I can believe that I am Gods creature without denying that I developed from a single cell in my mother's womb by natural processes." (p. 175)
The Christian faith rejects any kind of dualism between the soul and body of human beings. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (three persons and one nature) and the Incarnation (one person and two natures) assumes the history of the universe is the same as the history of human beings. According to the doctrine of original sin, human beings inherit the guilt of Adam's and Eve's sin through sexual generation. The idea that when a human being is conceived a miracle is performed is not based on Christian beliefs. The birth and death of a human being are natural processes. In fundamental theology, unnatural processes are called miracles and miracles are historical signs that a prophet has been sent by God. The salvation of human beings and faith in revelation, being gifts from God, can be considered supernatural processes.
What this means is that Ayala should not be teaching children biology. He misrepresents what evolution says to deceive others or to deceive himself. If apes are spiritual beings it may be true that they have the potential to become human beings. However, the concept of potential is an existential concept, not a scientific concept. Lest there be any doubt from the title of the book that Ayala is a materialist and an atheist:
"Pope Pius XII...acknowledged that biological evolution was compatible with the Christian faith, although he argued that Gods intervention was necessary for the creation of the human soul." (p. 164, note use of the word "although")
"I do not believe that the mysteries of the mind are unfathomable; rather, they are puzzles that humans can solve with the methods of science and illuminate with philosophical analysis and reflection." (p. 115)
The reason God's "intervention" is necessary for the creation of human beings is that human beings are finite and finite beings need a cause. The spirituality of human beings means that human beings are unified with respect to themselves and are finite beings in the court of conscience and reason. Ayala thinks science can explicate the existential unity of human beings in terms of the electrical, chemical, and biological signals between neurons and thereby reveal that our transcendental existence is an illusion. If God exists, according to Ayala, all He did was create electrical, chemical, and biological signals.
As can be expected, Ayala argues that the theory of intelligent design (ID) is not a scientific alternative to Darwinian evolution.
The latest explanation of ID is by Michael J. Behe in The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism. Behe renders moot Ayala's point that ID is not science by not spending much time on the theory and presenting it in a humble and tentative way.
He is not tentative about Darwinian evolution, saying it can destroy biological machinery, but can't build it up. Behe argues that the recently discovered mechanism for transporting cellular material in the tail of a single-celled organism (the website www.yale.edu/rosenbaum/rosen_research.html shows a film of this) is irreducibly complex and cant be explained by Darwinian evolution. To illustrate Darwinian destructiveness he cites sickle cell hemoglobin, an adaptation that protects against malaria. Behe likened the acceptance of Darwinian evolution by biologists with the belief of 19th century physicists that light travels, not in a vacuum, but in an invisible substance, highly rigid but having a low density, that permeates all of space.
Joke: Professor Behe, Professor Ayala, and Jean-Paul Sartre (atheisitic existentialist) were stranded on an island and were discussing the Big Bang. Behe said the Big Bang was created ex nihilo by an angel. Ayala said the Big Bang was a vacuum fluctuation. Sartre said there was no angel and no vacuum.
As to the reason why Darwinian evolution is a gift to religion, Ayala says:
"Indeed, a major burden was removed from the shoulders of believers when convincing evidence was advanced that the design of organisms need not be attributed to the immediate agency of the Creator, but rather is an outcome of natural processes." (p. 159)
Believers are sure that the eternal rewards of the next world will more than compensate for the suffering and injustices of this world. Nor is there any burden on those trying to decide whether or not the Creator has communicated himself to mankind through the Bible, the Koran, or the scriptures of the Eastern religions. Indeed, someone making what is the most important decision in every person's life will be led to make a positive decision for God by the possibility that God makes us suffer in order to help us develop character, just like good parents are not overprotective of their children.
David Hume, who Ayala quoted in full, said a good and omnipotent God would not let human beings suffer. Since people suffer, the reasoning goes, God is not omnipotent and good.
As to God's goodness, this reasoning is fallacious because we should let our fellow man suffer, even if we have the power to prevent it, if a higher good is thereby achieved. Physicians, for example, will not prescribe morphine in many cases because of the higher good of preventing addiction to the drug. It is true that we don't know what higher good God serves by giving us our freedom in this evolutionary world. However, we cannot conclude from our lack of knowledge that there is no higher good and that God is not good.
As to God's omnipotence, this reasoning is fallacious because God is not a finite being. If God was a finite being, it would be some kind of spirit without a body and its existence would not make our own finite existence intelligible.
I am licensed by the State of New York to teach biology to children and would tell them evolution applies only to the bodies of Homo sapiens. Either I am wrong or Ayala is.
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