Fransisco Ayala: Templeton Prize winner, nonsense purveyor
There's a popular refrain among more liberal-minded Christians who are not stupid enough to reject the foundation of all modern biology, but are still confused enough to believe in all the convoluted bogosity of their religion: that science and religion answer different questions. This is embodied by the liberal theology of the Templeton Foundation, an organization dedicated to muddying the line between demonstrably valid claims of truth and ones that people just pull out of their ass. This is Fransisco Ayala, who recently won the Templeton Prize, answering the question of whether science and religion contradict one another: The key bullshit phrase that Ayala uses is the term "properly understood". Last night I watched a BBC documentary about creationism in Tennessee, and the general difficulty teachers are having in teaching evolution if only because religious wingnuts have made it into a controversial issue. Ayala would like to live in this fantasy world where relig