NAS Member Francisco Ayala Wins Templeton Prize
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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.
