The New University has an interesting feature article up this week, titled "Francisco Ayala on the perfect compatibility of God and Evolution." This article basically features Dr. Ayala, who is a very genial and approachable professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (I interviewed him once for a science article I wrote a couple of years ago). Here's a clip of the article:

As a result of Ayala’s success in research, he has had the opportunity to speak all over the world, served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology for Bill Clinton and, because of his religious beliefs, become a frequent speaker on the subject of evolution in the context of religion, something he will not call an “intellectual debate.” Instead, he agrees with Judge John E. Jones who recently ruled against the teaching of intelligent design as science, calling creationism an “utterly forced premise.”

Ayala does not preach, though; he is merely confident in his beliefs, which place “God as author of the world” and “evolution as a scientific process.” After all, he says, no one questions individual creation. First there is the evolution of the fetus, “and then a little Francisco comes out.” [emphasis added]

While Ayala firmly believes in the sufficiency of evolution, I would like to point out some common ground that even creationists would share with him. If the New U article is accurate, Ayala professes to believe that God is the author of the world.

However, I would disagree with the main premise of the article. Evolution does not seem to be perfectly compatible with the existence of God. I think that the concept of a personal God is incongruous with the concept of materialism and unguided Darwinian evolution as the sole cause for the diversity of all life.