DARWIN AND INTELLIGENT DESIGN. By Francisco J Ayala. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006. Pp. iv + 106. Paper, $7.00, ISBN 0800638026.
In a book that is part of a Fortress Press series intended for lay audiences, Ayala asserts that science and religion need not be in contradiction with one another when properly analyzed. University Professor and Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Ayala avers that the two disciplines are essentially independent, distinct, and disparate sources of truth (science regarding the physical world and religion regarding metaphysical realities). Beyond saying that Darwinian evolution in no manner denies the existence of God, he goes on to insist that it is more compatible with Christian theism than Intelligent Design (ID). A sustained argument against ID is provided first by reviewing the life of eighteenth century clergyman William Paley and then equating the ID movement with Paley’s “god of the gaps” argument. Then, after briefly reviewing Darwin’s life, macroevolution is presented as proof of common descent. But if Ayala detests non-testable hypotheses such as (so he claims) ID, does this not also apply to (the theory of) macroevolution? Other questions concern whether the theory of “gill slits in humans” (p. 35) is still viable when recent embryological studies seem to have shown that such are not gill slits at all. All in all, the data presented seems selective and one-sided. Still, whether or not readers agree with Ayala’s deductions, they will nonetheless find value in the review of historical information regarding evolution in general and macroevolutionary theory in particular.
Bradford McCall
Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA 23464