Francisco Ayala, 88, UCI educator defended evolution
Francisco Ayala, one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists and a champion of science against the forces of religious fundamentalism, who was forced to give up his UC Irvine post late in life amid sexual harassment allegations, died March 3 in Newport Beach. He was 88.
His son Carlos confirmed his death, in a hospital, which came after a fall.
Ayala brought the training of a geneticist to the study of evolution, making important findings about the emergence and extinction of species in response to natural selection, mutation and other natural processes.
As disputes about evolution raged in U.S. courts, school boards and classrooms, Ayala, a native of Spain and a former Dominican priest, rose to its defense. In books, speeches and testimony in a lawsuit, he asserted that the theory of evolution is both scientifically sound and compatible with belief in God.
In 1981, he testified in a case that overturned an Arkansas law that had required a “balanced treatment” in teaching creationism and evolution.
His 2007 book, “Darwin’s Gift,” was widely praised as an accessible introduction to Darwin’s ideas and the development of evolutionary biology. Among other things, it suggested that it was evolution, not a divine creator or “intelligent designer,” that gave the human anatomy so many troublesome features — a spine that leaves people prone to back pain, a jaw too small for a person’s typical allotment of teeth, and other problems.
Eugenie C. Scott, a former director of the National Center for Science Education, said Ayala’s religious training and scientific expertise combined to make him a formidable ally, not just in defending the teaching of evolution but also in persuading the leaders of eminent scientific organizations that they should join the battle.
“He helped them understand the importance of taking seriously the creationist challenge to science,” Scott said in an interview.
Ayala’s research, and his energy and eloquence in defense of science, won him many honors. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1980, and in 2001 he received the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for scientists and engineers. He was a fellow and one-time president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In 2010, he won the $1.5 million Templeton Prize, an award given annually to people whose work involves questions of science and humanity’s place in the universe. He gave his prize money to UC Irvine, whose faculty he joined in 1989.
But in 2018, at age 84, he was forced to resign after four women at the university accused him of sexual harassment. A university investigation found that he had touched female colleagues — putting his hands under an administrator’s jacket and rubbing her sides, for example — invited a female professor to sit on his lap in a meeting, made unwanted sexual comments, and continued to do so after being warned not to.
He was subsequently expelled from the National Academy, and his fellowship at the American Association for the Advancement was withdrawn.
His defenders, including some female faculty members, attributed his actions to what they called misplaced European courtliness.
“I deeply regret that what I have always thought of as the good manners of a European gentleman ... made colleagues I respect uncomfortable,” Ayala said in a statement then. “It was never my intent to do so.”