3/25/10

Francisco Ayala

Based on a quick read of a wikipedia article about him, I don't see how this year's Templeton Prize winner, Francisco Ayala, could be seen as anything but a good guy. I'm looking forward to reading what the anti-Templeton crowd has to say.

UPDATE:  Ah, he's a "NOMA" guy.  So "not good" from the anti-Templeton crowd's perspective.  Still, he couldn't be a more foreceful advocate for science.  Here's a useful discussion by Mark Vernon. (How did he come out with that so fast?)

5 comments:

s. wallerstein said...

Interesting. I hope that Dr Ayala uses his prize money well, inviting me out to dinner for example: only vegetarian food, but expensive, classy vegetarian food. As to Mark Vernon having the data before us, we all know that Mr. Vernon is a conscious, dedicated agent of the international Templeton conspiracy and without doubt, his contacts inside the Templeton Kremlin fed him the information before lowly beings such as you and I could learn about it.

Jean Kazez said...

I don't suspect Mark of anything sinister. I just wonder--did he have that written up before the announcement? Did he guess? Did he know? As to the selection of Ayala--I think it suggests the Templeton foundation is as serious about promoting real science as a about promoting religion. I have sometimes thought they only had a pro-religion agenda, but I think that's wrong.

s. wallerstein said...

I was joking about Mark. As a good journalist, he probably found out who the candidates for the prize were and wrote up articles or outlines of articles for each one beforehand. That is very common and very easy, given Wikipedia.

Jean Kazez said...

I think he met him at a Templeton event. The more I read about these events, the more I'm jealous of people who get to go to them.

http://www.markvernon.com/friendshiponline/dotclear/index.php?post/2010/03/21/Group-gains

s. wallerstein said...

I don't have the right clothes, and I suspect it's a lot of brilliant people saying the right thing, when the cool thing about brilliant people is when they say the wrong thing.