THE TEMPLETON FOUNDATION: A SKEPTIC'S TAKE

Conversation : CULTURE

THE TEMPLETON FOUNDATION: A SKEPTIC'S TAKE

By John Horgan [4.4.06]

I rationalized that taking the foundation's money did not mean that it had bought me, as long as I remained true to my views. Yes, I used the same justification as a congressman accepting a golf junket from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But I'd already written freelance pieces for two Templeton publications, so declining this more-lucrative gig seemed silly. In for a dime, in for a dollar.

Introduction

In the previous edition of Edge, which reported on the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the publication of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, Ian McEwan noted the following:

"None of us, I think, in the mid-'70s, when The Selfish Gene was published, would have thought we'd be devoting so much mental space now to confront religion. We thought that matter had long been closed."

But the matter is far from closed.

John Horgan, in his essay below, has something new to say on the subject as he explores what he considers to be troublesome aspects of the so-called "reconciliation of science and religion". He writes:

Since many Edgies, like me, have been beneficiaries in one way or the other of the Templeton Foundation, which promotes reconciliation of science and religion, I thought they might be interested in my critique of the foundation, which was just published by the Chronicle of Higher Education. It's already stirring up quite a ruckus.

Quite a few Edgies have been the beneficiaries of Templeton Foundation financial support, from $15,000 fees for attending a conference, to the $1,500,000 Temple Prize. It would be interesting to hear from some of these individuals in an Edge Reality Club discussion based on Horgan's essay.

—JB

JOHN HORGAN is director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He is the author of The End of Science;The Undiscovered Mind; and, most recently, Rational Mysticism: Dispatches From the Border Between Science and Spirituality.

John Horgan's Edge Bio Page 

THE TEMPLETON FOUNDATION: A SKEPTIC'S TAKE

(JOHN HORGAN:) A year ago, I faced an ethical dilemma. The John Templeton Foundation was inviting me to be one of the first batch of Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellows in Science and Religion. The 10 fellows were to spend several weeks at the University of Cambridge, listening to scientists and philosophers pontificate on topics related to science and religion. The fellowship not only sounded like fun, it also paid all expenses and threw in an extra $15,000 — a tempting sum for a freelancer, which I was at the time. On the other hand, as an agnostic increasingly disturbed by religion's influence on human affairs, I had misgivings about the foundation's agenda of reconciling religion and science.

So what did I do? I went to Cambridge, of course. I rationalized that taking the foundation's money did not mean that it had bought me, as long as I remained true to my views. Yes, I used the same justification as a congressman accepting a golf junket from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But I'd already written freelance pieces for two Templeton publications, so declining this more-lucrative gig seemed silly. In for a dime, in for a dollar.

Then in January, a journalist considering applying for a Templeton journalism fellowship called and asked me about my experience. I found myself trying a bit too hard to justify my acceptance of the fellowship, even as I told the journalist how much I'd enjoyed it. I decided to write this essay to exorcise my lingering guilt, and perhaps to help others wondering whether to join the large and fast-growing list of Templeton donees, which includes many of the world's leading scientists and institutions.

A devout Presbyterian born and raised in Tennessee, John M. Templeton launched the extremely successful Templeton mutual funds in the 1950s and became a billionaire. He started spending serious money to promote his religious values in 1972, when he established the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities. The prize, which Templeton stipulated should exceed the Nobel Prize in monetary value, now totals almost $1.5-million and is awarded in Buckingham Palace. Previous winners include Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Charles W. Colson, the born-again Watergate convict. Over the past 20 years, most of the winners have been scientists who see inklings of the divine in nature, including Paul Davies, Freeman J. Dyson, John C. Polkinghorne, and Charles Hard Townes. This year's winner, John D. Barrow, a cosmologist at the University of Cambridge, continues in that vein.

Knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1987, Templeton established the Templeton Foundation that same year to support a broad range of activities aimed at finding common ground between science and religion. So far the foundation has spent more than $250-million on prizes, academic programs, publications, broadcasts, lectures, conferences, and research on topics such as the neurobiology and genetics of religious belief; the evolutionary origins of altruism; and the medical benefits of prayer, church attendance, and forgiveness.

Sir John recently added $550-million to the foundation, boosting its endowment to $1.1-billion. Foundation officials plan to double their annual outlays, which now total $60-million for more than 300 projects.

By all accounts, Sir John is a charming, open-minded man, who emphasizes the importance of humility in all spheres of life. But at 93, he has yielded the day-to-day leadership of the foundation to his son John Jr., a pediatric surgeon who quit his practice in 1995 to become the organization's president. An evangelical Christian, "Jack" is the chairman of Let Freedom Ring Inc., which raises funds for conservative causes. He has reportedly contributed to both presidential campaigns of George Bush, whose relations with the scientific community are arguably the worst of any president in history.

Nevertheless the nation's leading scientific organization — the American Association for the Advancement of Science — and scores of research universities are Templeton Foundation beneficiaries. Largely as a result of Templeton grants, some 90 American medical schools now offer courses on links between health and spirituality. Templeton funds have even trickled down to atheists like the physicist Steven Weinberg, who once proclaimed during a AAAS conference sponsored by the foundation in 1999, "I am all in favor of a dialogue between science and religion, but not a constructive dialogue."

Weinberg has not held his tongue as a result of pocketing Templeton cash, but other recipients have. In March 2003, I attended a Templeton-sponsored conference at Stanford University titled "Becoming Human: Brain, Mind, and Emergence" (my expenses were paid not by the foundation but by a magazine). The meeting was supposed to be a dialogue between neuroscientists, such as V.S. Ramachandran, Robert M. Sapolsky, and Antonio R. Damasio, and religious figures, including the theologian Nancey Murphy and the Australian archbishop George Pell. But the dialogue was nominal; each side listened politely to the other's presentations without really commenting on them. Several areligious scientists told me privately that they did not want to challenge the beliefs of religious speakers for fear of offending them and the Templeton hosts.

At least one scientist has publicly refused to accept money from the foundation. Sean M. Carroll, a physicist at the University of Chicago, declined an invitation to speak at a Templeton-sponsored conference held last fall, which featured 16 Nobel laureates and was endorsed by the American Physical Society. Carroll explained in his blog that "the entire purpose of the Templeton Foundation is to blur the line between straightforward science and explicitly religious activity, making it seem like the two enterprises are part of one big undertaking." An atheist, Carroll did not want his name to be "implicitly associated with an effort I find to be woefully misguided." Yet Carroll admitted that he had been tempted by the foundation's offer of a $2,000 honorarium.

Two years ago I faced a similar temptation, when an editor for a Templeton journal asked me to write an essay. Before accepting the assignment — which seemed reasonably interesting and, more important, paid well — I revealed my reservations about the foundation's religious agenda. The editor turned out to be an agnostic who shared my reservations, particularly about the leadership of Jack Templeton; money persuaded me and the editor to swallow our misgivings. I have now written three articles for Templeton publications, for a total of $8,800.

My ambivalence about the foundation came to a head during my fellowship in Cambridge last summer. The British biologist Richard Dawkins, whose participation in the meeting helped convince me and other fellows of its legitimacy, was the only speaker who denounced religious beliefs as incompatible with science, irrational, and harmful. The other speakers — three agnostics, one Jew, a deist, and 12 Christians (a Muslim philosopher canceled at the last minute) — offered a perspective clearly skewed in favor of religion and Christianity.

Some of the Christian speakers' views struck me as inconsistent, to say the least. None of them supported intelligent design, the notion that life is in certain respects irreducibly complex and hence must have a divine origin, and several of them denounced it. Simon Conway Morris, a biologist at Cambridge and an adviser to the Templeton Foundation, ridiculed intelligent design as nonsense that no respectable biologist could accept. That stance echoes the view of the foundation, which over the last year has taken pains to distance itself from the American intelligent-design movement.

And yet Morris, a Catholic, revealed in response to questions that he believes Christ was a supernatural figure who performed miracles and was resurrected after his death. Other Templeton speakers also rejected intelligent design while espousing beliefs at least as lacking in scientific substance.

The Templeton prize-winners John Polkinghorne and John Barrow argued that the laws of physics seem fine-tuned to allow for the existence of human beings, which is the physics version of intelligent design. The physicist F. Russell Stannard, a member of the Templeton Foundation Board of Trustees, contended that prayers can heal the sick — not through the placebo effect, which is an established fact, but through the intercession of God. In fact the foundation has supported studies of the effectiveness of so-called intercessory prayer, which have been inconclusive.

One Templeton official made what I felt were inappropriate remarks about the foundation's expectations of us fellows. She told us that the meeting cost more than $1-million, and in return the foundation wanted us to publish articles touching on science and religion. But when I told her one evening at dinner that — given all the problems caused by religion throughout human history — I didn't want science and religion to be reconciled, and that I hoped humanity would eventually outgrow religion, she replied that she didn't think someone with those opinions should have accepted a fellowship. So much for an open exchange of views.

Still I can't regret spending three weeks in Cambridge classrooms, pubs, and punts, jawing with brainy folks about the meaning of life. The highlight for me was getting to know the nine other fellows, who represented such big-time media as National Public Radio, ABC News, the BBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post (I was the only freelancer there). About half were believers, and half were skeptics like me.

My conversations with the faithful deepened my appreciation of why some intelligent, well-educated people embrace religion. One reporter discussed the experience of speaking in tongues, and another described having an intimate relationship with Jesus. My convictions did not change, but others' did. At least one fellow said that his faith was wavering as a result of Dawkins's dissection of religion. And if the Templeton Foundation can help bring about even such a tiny step toward my vision of a world without religion, how bad can it be?

The foundation recently named 12 recipients of its 2006 journalism fellowship, and I suspect that some of the new fellows have doubts about jumping on the Templeton bandwagon. The foundation could assuage the misgivings of those and other grantees with a few simple acts.

First, the foundation should state clearly that it is not committed to any particular conclusion of the science-religion dialogue, and that one possible conclusion is that religion — at least in its traditional, supernatural manifestations — is not compatible with science. To demonstrate its open-mindedness, the foundation should award the Templeton Prize to an opponent of religion, such as Steven Weinberg or Richard Dawkins. At the very least, the foundation should post this essay on its Web site.

Reality Club Discussion

dan_sperber's picture
Dan Sperber
Social and Cognitive Scientist; CEU Budapest and CNRS Paris; Co-author (with Deirdre Wilson), Meaning and Relevance; and (with Hugo Mercier), The Enigma of Reason

I agree with most of what Scott Atran says. I don't believe that "things (in general??) ought to be rational and evidence based." I have no objection ("God forbid!" so to speak) to talking with and to religious people, attending conferences organized by them, and, in fact, enjoying life in their company. I agree that "the unreflective taking of monies from national science foundations and national institutes of health, and from offices of defense research — all of whose priorities are determined in the mid and long term by others' judgments of political compatibility" — is problematic. 

So, let's be reflective about it. Let's ask ourselves in particular how accepting this money affects the structure of power on the one hand, and the tenor of findings on the other.

On the first point, I find it objectionable, for instance, that defense ministries should have money to spend on research beyond properly military research. This gives them an unjustifiable say on the pursuit of science in general. On the second point, most of these grant giving organizations have no stake in the tenor of the findings, but there are exceptions, the most blatant and objectionable being pharmaceutical and tobacco industries financing research the outcome of which may make them gain or lose income.

The Templeton Foundation is an exception in this respect too: they have a stake in a rosier picture of religion. So yes let's reflect, be careful, at times refuse monies. When we do take monies from less than optimal sources (for instance because otherwise our students are not funded), let's, as I suggested, be cynical — or if you don't like the word, lucid — about it rather than pretend that all is well and that Templeton money smells of hallowed roses. Let's be cynical however with some sophistication, and not pretend that all money is impure and that all sources of funding stinks equally: some stinks more than Templeton, and other less.

daniel_c_dennett's picture
Daniel C. Dennett
Philosopher; Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University; Author, From Bacteria to Bach and Back

"Prejudice" — I'm fascinated by Freeman Dyson's word choice. The tradition of hyper-respect for religion has so thoroughly saturated our culture that we think someone is prejudiced who treats religion as one natural phenomenon among many — alongside music and sex and food (and money and the pharmaceutical industry and baseball) but perhaps as important as all of them put together.

Even-handedness is not good enough for religion, apparently. One of the reasons that religion keeps coming back in through the window is that it has managed to secure a free pass, just one of the adaptations that organized religions have acquired over the millennia. There is no more mystery about why religions have such a hold on us than there is a mystery about why symbionts have such success inhabiting our bodies: in both cases they have been designed (by no one, by evolution) over the millennia to secure their bases, to deflect challenges and criticisms, and to enhance their own spread to new hosts. Many of our biological symbionts are not just helpful to us; we couldn't live without them. Perhaps religion is, similarly, something we can't live without, a cultural symbiont that truly earns its keep. Many think so, but this is not yet established.

It is prejudiced to assume that religions must be good for us because they persist so vigorously, and it is prejudiced to assume that religions must be bad for us because they are cunningly designed to hold our allegiance whether they deserve it or not. I want to look at these questions using all the tools of inquiry at our disposal.

I'm surprised and disappointed that Freeman Dyson views the open-minded curiosity of Breaking the Spell as prejudiced. I'm sure he doesn't think that it is wrong to try to learn more about a natural phenomenon, so I suspect he is just being lulled by the ancient tradition that demands that religions be honored first, studied later or never.

That's the spell we must break. Religions should be respected, yes, the same way we should respect both whales and tsetse flies, sunlight and tsunamis, but not honored. When we have a better grip on what they do for us, and to us, we'll be able to make a more informed decision about whether to honor them.

daniel_c_dennett's picture
Daniel C. Dennett
Philosopher; Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University; Author, From Bacteria to Bach and Back

John Horgan closes with a modest proposal to the Templeton Foundation:

"To demonstrate its open-mindedness, the foundation should award the Templeton Prize to an opponent of religion, such as Steven Weinberg or Richard Dawkins."

That made me smile, but I burst out laughing when my wife quipped "That would be a miracle!

colin_tudge's picture
Colin Tudge
Biologist; Author, Six Steps Back to the Land

Isn't "The Third Culture" just the materialist end of logical positivism? And hasn't materialist positivism had as good a crack of the whip as it deserves? What do Dennett's arguments amount to apart from a statement of his own opinion (preconception, prejudice, mind-set, attitude)?

george_johnson's picture
George Johnson
Author; The Cancer Chronicles, The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments; Columnist, The New York Times

Those three summer weeks in Cambridge, as Templeton journalism fellows, were magical. Anything Templeton puts on is a class act, and what we were treated to was a sumptuous feast of intellectual camaraderie. Whether we were dining at Trinity College, across the Great Court from Newton's old quarters, or grabbing hamburgers at the Eagle Tavern with the ghost of Francis Crick, we were talking about ideas. It was an unforgettable experience for which I always will be grateful, and that is the problem.

It's not that I sensed any pressure during the fellowship to accept the Templeton world view. The judges knew from the beginning what I thought of the effort to make peace between science and religion, and during the seminars I freely expressed my doubts. I left unharmed and learned a lot. What I came away with was better ammunition.

The danger of accepting that fine hospitality is more subtle. From now on, whenever I write about a Templeton-funded project, a little voice somewhere in my head will be second-guessing me. Anxious to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, am I being a little nastier or nicer than I might otherwise have been? And if I am troubled by the possibility, how can I expect that a reader won't be?

In the ethics of journalism, appearances count heavily, and all of us confront these dilemmas every day. I convinced myself that the tradeoff was worth it. I still believe so, but part of me will always wonder. A journalist is cursed with having to be skeptical of everything and everyone, including himself.

scott_atran's picture
Scott Atran
Anthropologist; Emeritus Research Director, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut Jean Nicod, Paris; Co-Founder, Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict, University of Oxford; Author, Talking to the Enemy

Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennett seem to insist that that faith in god is a weapon of war. But in cross-cultural study after study my colleagues, most notably Ara Norenzayan and Jeremy Ginges, find no evidence that belief in god, prayer frequency, or meditation is related to intolerance or violence once coalitional variables are partialed out. Although it is correct that faith and coalitional variables go hand in hand, that is just a correlation, not causation.

Several of these studies show that priming god or reminders of prayer actually increase tolerance and decrease support for violence.

freeman_dyson's picture
Freeman Dyson
Physicist, Institute of Advanced Study; Author, Disturbing the Universe; Maker of Patterns

Thank you for sending the Horgan piece, which I think expresses quite well the prejudiced attitude of some scientists toward religion in general and Templeton in particular. As a Templeton beneficiary, I do not feel that my freedom of speech is in any way limited. I have no objection to your publishing this piece on Edge. With luck it might stimulate a more intelligent discussion of the issues. After all, whether you like it or not, religion is an important part of the human comedy. As my mother used to say, you can drive religion out of the door but it comes back in through the window.

I just finished reading Dennett's book, "Breaking the Spell", which expresses the same prejudices in a more scholarly style.

george_dyson's picture
George Dyson
Science Historian; Author, Analogia

Our friend Kurt Gödel, who thought logically (and never under the influence of the Templeton Foundation) has something to say about this:

Princeton 6 October 1961

Dearest Mama,

The religious views that I wrote you about have nothing to do with occultism.

Religious occultism consists in conjuring up the ghost of the Apostle Paul, or the Archangel Michael, etc., in spiritualistic seances and seeking information about religious questions from them. What I wrote you is nothing but a concrete representation and an adaptation to our present way of thinking of certain theological teachings that have been preached for two thousand years, though mixed with much nonsense.

If one reads what in the course of time has been, and still is, asserted as dogma in the various churches, one must be truly amazed. For example according to Catholic dogma the all-benevolent God created most people — namely, all except the good Catholics, which even of the Catholics are only a fraction — expressly for the purpose of sending them to Hell for all eternity. I don't think that the application of the understanding in any domain is something unsound (as you intimate). It would be quite unjustified to say that precisely in this domain one can achieve nothing with the understanding. For who would have thought, three thousand years ago, that one would be able to determine of the most distant stars how large, how heavy, how hot and how far away they are, and that many of them are a hundred times larger than the sun. Or who would have believed that someone would build television sets?

When, 2500 years ago, the doctrine was first enunciated that bodies consist of atoms, that must at that time have seemed just as fantastic and unfounded as many of the religious doctrines appear today. For at that time there was literally not a single known observational fact that could have led to the enunciation of the atomic theory; rather, that happened on purely philosophical grounds. Nevertheless, that theory has today been brilliantly confirmed and has become the basis for a very large part of modern science. Of course, today we are far from being able to justify the theological world view scientifically but I think already today it may be possible purely rationally (without the support of faith and any sort of religion) to apprehend that the theological world view is thoroughly compatible with all known facts (including the conditions that prevail on our earth).

Two hundred fifty years ago the famous philosopher and mathematician Leibniz already tried to do that, and that is also what I have attempted in my last letters. What I call the theological world-view is the idea that the world and everything in it has meaning and reason [to it], and in fact a good and indubitable meaning. From that it follows directly that our earthly existence, since it in itself has a very doubtful meaning, can only be a means toward the goal of another existence. The idea that everything in the world has meaning is, after all, precisely analogous to the principle that everything has a cause on which the whole of science rests.

With a thousand kisses,

ever yours, Kurt

richard_dawkins's picture
Richard Dawkins
Evolutionary Biologist; Emeritus Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford; Author, Books Do Furnish a Life

I have just read Freeman Dyson's response to Horgan, which he copied to me.

Nobody could possibly deny that religion is an important part of the human comedy, which comes back through the window whenever you try to drive it out of the door. That, indeed, is precisely what Dennett's book is about. Dennett wants us to do scientific research to understand why religion is an important part of the human comedy. What is prejudiced about that?

But the fact that religion keeps coming back gives us not the tiniest smidgen of a reason for thinking that any of its supernatural claims are true. Freeman Dyson, by accepting the Templeton Prize, sent a powerful signal to the world which, whether he likes it or not, will be taken as an endorsement of religion by one of the world's most distinguished physicists. The great Freeman Dyson is a Christian!

"I am content to be one of the multitude of Christians who do not care much about the doctrine of the Trinity or the historical truth of the gospels." Isn't that exactly what any atheistic scientist would say, if he suddenly found himself confronted with a strong inducement to profess Christianity and yet was trying to avoid an outright lie?

Oh, you want something a bit more profound, as well? How about "I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension." Have I said enough yet, and can I get back to doing physics now? Oh, not enough yet? OK then, how about this: "Even in the gruesome history of the twentieth century, I see some evidence of progress in religion. The two individuals who epitomized the evils of our century, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, were both avowed atheists." Can I go now?

Dyson could easily refute the implication of these quotations from his Templeton acceptance speech (*), if only he would explain clearly what evidence he finds to believe in God, in something more than just the Einsteinian sense (which trivially we can all subscribe to) of 'a name we give to that which we don't yet understand.' I look forward to reading or hearing any such explanation from any scientist who has accepted the Templeton Prize.

If I understand Horgan's point, it is that Templeton's money corrupts science. On the face of it, Freeman Dyson's letter might be thought to play into Horgan's hands. As Dan Dennett once said to me, "Richard, if ever you fall on hard times . . ."

Best wishes
Richard

richard_gregory's picture
Richard Gregory
Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology, University of Bristol

This may be merely a niggle, but I find 'Intelligent Design' a misleading phrase, in the evolution context, as I think of evolution by natural selection a kind of intelligence. In fact the supreme intelligence, as it created (and designed!) our intelligence. And it discovered answers to umpteen questions at present beyond our understanding in biology. It is also a bother (as Darwin recognised) that there seems to be amazingly intelligent design in physics, where there may be no trial-and-error learning, as in natural selection.

Isn't the issue really intention? I see natural selection as intelligent but lacking intention.

I think 'intelligence' needs defining without implying intention, and this might be useful for AI discussions. After all, we don't exactly know Newton's intentions (and they seem very odd), yet we call him highly intelligent.

Surely the objection, is to injecting intention from God — not intelligence.

Let me add to Richard's comment with a relevant experience. I was asked by the magazine Science and Spirit, supported by Templeton, to write a piece concerning the work we have done on the sources of our moral judgments, summarized in my upcoming book. At first I had a very similar response to that expressed in Richard's note: don't write for, and thus functionally support, a magazine that is funded by a foundation that I don't respect.

But then I thought of a comment that Noam Chomsky made to me once when I asked why he stays in a country that he appears to disrespect so deeply. In brief, he noted that there is no better place to attack than from within. I took this position and decided to write a piece for S&S, laying out the evidence we have from our work that a significant proportion of our moral judgments are mediated by unconscious processes that are functionally immune to religious background and belief. In this sense, the mind's instinct to deliver moral verdicts is like a prophylactic against religious beliefs. When we deliver moral judgments and think that religion guides our choices, we are guided by a massive illusion.

Now, the piece is still in the hands of the editor, and we will soon see whether they run it or back off given the message, but I decided to publish with Science and Spirit as a way to get "inside" the system and go at it. It is in this spirit that I think Horgan's piece is important, and that Richard's comment is relevant. Taking money from the Templeton foundation presents a Faustian choice for many. Given the lack of funding in many of our disciplines, it is tempting to be seduced by an organization brimming with money. But I wouldn't do it! Selling your soul is irreversible, so I hear.

jerry_a_coyne's picture
Jerry A. Coyne
Professor Emeritus, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago; Author, Why Evolution is True; Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible.

I absolutely agree with Sperber and Dawkins that the Templeton Foundation corrupts science. It does this in two ways. First, it involves us in a dialogue that is designed to have a predetermined result: the reconciliation of science and religion. But when doing our own research, we are not committed to a specific outcome. Thus, if you're one of the many scientists who doesn't think that such a reconciliation is possible — at least not without mendacity, self-delusion, or cognitive dissonance — then it is unethical to take money from the Foundation. That is like taking money to attend a conference aimed at reconciling evolution with Intelligent Design, even if you do not think that they're compatible. (IDers think that they are.)

Second, it leads, as George Johnson has noted, to the appearance of a conflict of interest, even if the beneficiary is convinced that none exists. Even if a US Senator is predetermined by his own opinions to vote in favor of, say, drilling for oil in Alaska, it is nevertheless illegal and unethical for him to take personal money from the oil industry, and it looks bad to takecampaign money from the oil industry. Scientists should be purer than Senators because it is our business to promulgate the truth, and all we have is our reputations as unsullied truth-seekers.

I am appalled at the Templeton Foundation dangling large sums of money in front of scientists. Why so much money? This can only serve, I think, to bend those people motivated by the prospect of gaining a million-plus dollars toward the will of the Foundation.

Now if the Foundation changes its aims to exploring the compatibility of science and religion, that would change things!

dan_sperber's picture
Dan Sperber
Social and Cognitive Scientist; CEU Budapest and CNRS Paris; Co-author (with Deirdre Wilson), Meaning and Relevance; and (with Hugo Mercier), The Enigma of Reason

According to its website, "the mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to pursue new insights at the boundary between theology and science through a rigorous, open-minded and empirically focused methodology, drawing together talented representatives from a wide spectrum of fields of expertise."

Isn't it obvious that committed atheists, for whom there is no "boundary between theology and science" where "new insights" could be pursued, should abstain from applying for, or accepting funding from this foundation (even if — or, rather, particularly if — as do some participants in the debate, they feel respect for the foundation)? I can alas well understand how, lacking funding for oneself or for one's students, one might be led to adopt a less principled attitude, but in that case, better be cynical about it than disingenuously find virtue in what remains, even if one choose to benefit from it, an unacceptable ideological agenda.

More generally, scientists (and citizens) should object to sources of funding for research, whether public or private, that try to favor findings of a given tenor. This can never be "rigorous" or "open-minded" in the way we are trying to be.

leonard_susskind's picture
Leonard Susskind
Felix Bloch Professor in Theoretical Physics, Stanford; Author, The Theoretical Minimum series

I don't understand the idea that a convergence between science and religion is taking place. I don't believe in any such convergence. Throwing huge amounts of money at scientists who claim to see such a convergence can only lead to a dangerous blurring of boundaries.

I hereby pledge to refuse any prize for advancing the so called convergence between science and religion.

lee_smolin's picture
Lee Smolin
Physicist, Perimeter Institute; Author, Einstein's Unfinished Revolution

I am not at all religious, nor particularly interested in religion, but I was invited to several meetings sponsored by the Templeton Foundation. I found that skeptics about religion and its relation to science were represented at each meeting, such as Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. No one minded when we expressed our views strongly, quite the opposite. I do think that the fact that they included people who are strongly in disagreement with their goals speaks well for them. They seemed genuinely interested in a dialogue between scientists, philosophers and theologians, without preconditions.

This stands in contrast to some scientific research programs that never invite skeptics or leaders of competing approaches to speak at their conferences. I have to say that I found a much more open minded, engaged and respectful discussion between people with different views at Templeton meetings than I have, for example, at string theory meetings.

Why did I go? First, to meet Richard Dawkins, who I had always wanted to meet. Second, because I am interested in the history and philosophy of physics and it is impossible to understand key figures such as Newton and Leibniz without understanding the role theological issues played in their thinking. I found some of the theologians I met at the Templeton meetings to be intelligent, open minded, sophisticated thinkers, and I learned things about my subject talking with them.

I also found that I can have a more useful conversation with a cosmologist such as George Ellis who is honest and reflective about the role his religious faith plays in his thinking than I can with some colleagues whose faith in their theories seems almost religious but who believe they are paragons of rationality. Given the role that Christianity has played in framing the thinking of physicists and cosmologists isn't it better to confront it head on than leave it unconscious and unanalyzed?

Was I influenced or tainted in some way by attending these meetings? 

Not in the least. My beliefs and views did not change at all, but I do have some more insight into how the yearning to find god is tangled up in the thinking of cosmologists, both in the past and now. Finally, am I tempted to change my views by the prospect of a large prize? Many of us could have had easier careers had we been more willing to go along with the mainstream trends in our fields; if we have survived this long by preferring our own ideas, we are not likely to give up our hard won integrity for mere money.

scott_atran's picture
Scott Atran
Anthropologist; Emeritus Research Director, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut Jean Nicod, Paris; Co-Founder, Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict, University of Oxford; Author, Talking to the Enemy

I find it fascinating that brilliant scientists and philosophers have no clue how to deal with the basic irrationality of human life and society other than to insist against all reason and evidence that things ought to be rational and evidence based. Makes me embarrassed to be an atheist.

I find no historical evidence whatever that scientists have a keener or deeper appreciation than religious people of of how to deal with personal or moral problems. Some scientists have some good and helpful insights into human beings' existential problems some of the time, but some good scientists have done more to harm others than most people are remotely capable of.

Science has made enormous contributions to prospects for improving human welfare, but only very intermittent progress in application. As a group, even the very best among us haven't the foggiest idea of how to deal with power, other than to try to escape it or to believe that their saying that what should be so must ultimately make it so.

True, some people operating in the name of religion have been more explicitly savage and cruel towards others than most, but there are the likes of Lincoln, Gandhi and Martin Luther King whose religion not only has given hope to so many but has thereby cumulatively enabled the lessening of human misery.

Should scientists take money from foundations whose objectives include not only the scientific study of religion but also explorations of possible complementarities between science and religion in understanding the human comedy or making it less painful?

No reason not to, as long as there is no move to subvert research or force findings. Much more problematic, it seems to me, is the unreflective taking of monies from national science foundations and national institutes of health, and from offices of defense research — all of whose priorities are determined in the mid and long term by others' judgments of political compatibility.

One notable exception is Noam Chomsky, who was lecturing at West Point last week, deep within "the belly of the beast." Let those who think religion so beastly similarly engage, using the beast's own money as Marc Hauser suggests (just as Chomsky has used defense monies over the years). But I think a more productive use of such funds would be much needed research into how to advance science in a fundamentally non-rational world, instead of just railing against this world or pretending that sweet reason will prevail if only it is given sufficient clarity and exposure. From this vantage, engagement with religion might be more help than hindrance.