Francisco J. Ayala - Research and Work

Research and Work

He is known for his research on population and evolutionary genetics, and has been called the "Renaissance Man of Evolutionary Biology". His "discoveries have opened up new approaches to the prevention and treatment of diseases that affect hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide", including demonstrating the reproduction of Trypanosoma cruzi, the agent of Chagas disease, is mostly the product of cloning, and that only a few clones account for most of this widespread, mostly untreatable South American disease that affects 16 million to 18 million people.

He has been publicly critical of U.S. restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. He currently serves on the advisory board of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, an organization that has lobbied Congress to lift federal restrictions on funding embryonic stem cell research. He is also a critic of creationism and intelligent design theories, claiming that they are not only pseudoscience, but also mistaken from theological point of view. He suggests that the theory of evolution resolves the problem of evil, thus being a kind of theodicy. Ayala generally does not discuss his own religious opinions, but had said that "science is compatible with religious faith in a personal, omnipotent and benevolent God." He was, until the 1960s, a Dominican priest.

He attended the Beyond Belief symposium on November 2006.