Francisco J. Ayalas argument in Intelligent Design: The Original Version - Essay Example

Ayala is deeply amazed with Paley's extensive and profound biological knowledge, because Paley underscored even the smallest details of air bladder of fish, fangs of vipers, the claw of herons, the camel's stomach, the woodpecker's tongue, the elephant's proboscis, the hook in the bat's wing, the spider's web, the compound eyes of insects, and their metamorphosis, the glowworms, univalve an bivalve mollusks, seed dispersal, and on and on, with accuracy and as much detail as known to biologists of his time (Ayala, 1993).

The Copernicus' and Darwin's monumental intellectual contribution, according to Ayala presents a priggish version of the history of ideas, which are said to have eventuated two revolutions. He agreed with the parallelism of the Copernican revolution and Darwinian revolution, because the Darwin's theory is parallel with Copernicus idea that the earth is a subordinate place as one more revolving another planet revolving around the sun, with Darwin's displacement of humans from the previous position being the center of life on earth into just one species among the many in the living world (Ayala, 1993).

Both of them accomplished their revolution, for one Copernicus' theory was accomplished with heliocentric theory of the solar system; while Darwin's achievement emerged from his theory of organic evolution.However he finds the two revolutions inadequate, what they both asserted is true; it misses what is most important according to Ayala, because the two theories ushered in the beginning of science in the modern sense of the word. He argued that the two revolutions may jointly be seen as one scientific revolution with two stages, the Copernican and the Darwinism.

He further asserted that the advances of physical science had driven humankind's conception of the universe to a split-personality state of affairs, which persisted well into the mid-nineteenth century.He fervently believed that it was Darwin who reconciled the split-personality conception of the universe because he completed the Copernican revolution by drawing out biology the notion of nature as a lawful system of matter in motion that human reason can explain without recourse to extra-natural agencies (Ayala, 1993).

However, he also acknowledged the limitation because there is indeed a design and function, but forgot the role of a creator or author. He appreciated how Paley belabored the arguments on the said matter which according to Ayala with great skill and profusion of detail. But then he also argued natural selection does not operate in the manner of Paley's unaccepted hypothesis, acting on randomly formed organisms, allowing the functional ones to survive while the great majority dies. For Ayala, the natural selection process is a creative process, it does not create the entities upon which it operates, rather it produces adaptive (functional) genetic combinations that could not have existed otherwise (Ayala, 1993).

Scientific knowledge indeed is a remarkable in the way it emerges by the way of consensus and agreement among scientist and in the way new knowledge builds upon past accomplishments rather than startling anew with each generation or each new practitioner (Ayala, 1993). He also pointed out that science is a way of knowing, but it is not the only way,