Francisco J. Ayala is University Professor and Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He has published over 950 articles and is author or editor of thirty-one books. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and received the 2001 U.S. National Medal of Science. The New York Times named Ayala the “Renaissance Man of Evolutionary Biology.”