I’m not going to let up on the John Templeton Foundation (JTF), for, despite their fervent assurances to the contrary, they’re still in the business of trying to drag science and religion into a loving concordat. They do this in numerous ways, but always their end is to fulfill the dreams of their founder and funder, who gave the foundation its largesse—now up to 1.5 billion dollars in endownment (JTF dispenses $70 million yearly in grants and prizes). Lest I distort that mission, let me quote the JTF’s own words:
Our vision is derived from the late Sir John Templeton’s optimism about the possibility of acquiring “new spiritual information” and from his commitment to rigorous scientific research and related scholarship. The Foundation’s motto, “How little we know, how eager to learn,” exemplifies our support for open-minded inquiry and our hope for advancing human progress through breakthrough discoveries.
Short take, which I think is accurate: Sir John thought science would give us information about God. That’s why they funded the famous intercessory prayer study that, distressingly, gave NO evidence for divine healing. Indeed, it showed a slight increase in bad cardiac outcomes for patients who received prayer. I guess the “new spiritual information” from that study is that “God doesn’t answer prayers.” Duh!
At any rate, I won’t have anything to do with the JTF, nor would I even if they completely separated their science function from their “spiritual: function. Dan Dennett, however, would, but he was told by a JTF official that that isn’t in the cards. (It would ruin the Foundation’s mission.) Here’s some correspondence I got from Dan that he gave me permission to share on this site. These are Dan’s words:
I was at a meeting at Santa Fe Institute. I asked the major Templeton exec there (alas I can’t recall his name, but he was more or less the top dog at the time) if it would be difficult or impossible to split the foundation. Not at all, he said. In fact, the Templeton money was already split into 3 distinct legal entities (he didn’t give the details). But he said they wouldn’t consider such a split, renaming the projects.
They could easily create two funds, two foundations, with the money at their disposal. They’ve told me that. But they won’t. Why not? Because it is THEIR PRECISE GOAL to hitchhike on the prestige of the science they support to elevate the prestige of the utter drivel they also support. If you take money from Templeton, you find yourself in an unpalatable sandwich, in between the bullshit and special pleading for religion. So far as I can tell, ever since they got burned with the Harvard Benson study on the INeffectiveness—as it turns out—of intercessory prayer, they haven’t funded any science that might risk putting religion in a bad light. That’s OK, if your express and only purpose is to support religion, but they want to have the gravitas of supporting independent science so they can go on peddling pablum as their main product.
Strong words, but true ones. So Merry Christmas to Templeton and all you scientists who besmirch your good names by lining up at its trough. May you enjoy your swill, and continue to confuse people with the idea that religion provides “ways of knowing.”
Postscript: Reader Pliny the in Between has provided an appropriate cartoon:
Like the phrase “loving concordat” and the use of besmirch.
“So far as I can tell, ever since they got burned with the Harvard Benson study on the INeffectiveness—as it turns out—of intercessory prayer, they haven’t funded any science that might risk putting religion in a bad light.”
I have been wondering about that. Even with their faiblesse for utter bullshit, they should have produced more stuff like that.
Seems they *really* don’t want to know how failed their magic hypothesis is!
What is going on in their heads? – when scientifically designed studies show there is no power in prayer they shrink from it instead of having faith that… the study was flawed and needs to be redone properly.
They immediately have no faith in their faith. What if Science was a tool of the devil? That would explain it, too. No, it seems that they respect science and stop applying it to religion instead, because it’s too revealing.
I’ve wondered if, before the money runs out, they might actually be persuaded (perhaps by the science they sponsor) to renege on their promise to father ‘T’ and change the mission statement, and promoting reality instead.
If they cannot do science right, John Templeton Foundation needs to take a lesson from elite athletes and learn not to be afraid to fail.
Templeton fears failure above all things. They risk nothing and by doing so they gain nothing.
They are a fixed outcome of uselessness. Pitiful.
They are a metaphor of a crappy swimmer: with their arms around the lane rope nauseated by the thought of trying hard. Get out of the water and go home and never come back. This sport (science) does not need your kind.
“They are a metaphor of a crappy swimmer: with their arms around the lane rope nauseated by the thought of trying hard.”
When I was in U.S. Navy Officer Candidate School, my company found ourselves in a swimming contest with another company. We were doing (if I get the nomenclature correctly) Freestyle, Sidestroke, Backstroke and Butterfly. No one was volunteering for the Butterfly, IIRC the hardest. If no one from our company did the Butterfly, then we’d forfeit this precious contest. I volunteered, and of course came in last, as I most certainly knew I would, and had to hear about it from my “shipmates.” I declined to keep my mouth shut it response, reminding them, in clean, charitable language, that none of them had similarly volunteered to walk out on the thin ice.
No good deed goes unpunished. In my Older Age I figure I’ve paid my dues in volunteering to take in slack others have let out.
The fact that the John Templeton Foundation has $1.5 billion at its disposal seems like adequate evidence that either there are no gods or any gods that exist are not good.
Sooo – if cold fusion is a ‘reputation sink’ or whatever that philosopher bloke called it, maybe the more Templeton funds such stuff and gets identified with woo, the better?
cr
The real purpose of prayer is to make the one doing the praying feel better. Measured from that perspective, the results would be both extremely positive and…honest!
So, dealing with the Templeton Foundation is serving yourself with a Shit Sandwich. Who’da thunk it?
It occurred to me to wonder where the money was actually coming from.
If I’ve got the right guy, he was a stock market dude.
Balzac said there was a crime behind every great fortune. Sir John made sure there would be great crimes in the future of his.
How does Sir John’s fortune compare to that of Bill Gates?
Last I heard, Gates was worth around $80 bil, so 50+ times the figure Jerry gives for Templeton’s.
Of course, Gate’s great fortune has in its history the crime of Window’s Vista. 🙂
Internet Explorer 5, ActiveX, QuickBasic, edlin…
😉
cr
Pliny the in Between is the coolest name ever.
[Camera pans over bleak seascape, with waves crashing over a rocky shore. In the distance we see a lone, seated figure. Scene change to a close-up of the figure who is Sir David Attenborough. Through his craggy features we see that he is rather cheerful today. Almost buoyant. He looks thoughtfully over the sea, then turns to the camera.]
“And here at last, we reach the end of our story. Through different episodes we have shown you, the viewer, the many strange mating rituals between the Cash-strapped Scientist and their intended mate, the Templeton Queen. All of their efforts to combine the Scientific Method with Sophisticated Theology have failed to produce a single, viable result.”
[Camera shifts to a new angle on SDA who adds, conspiratorially…]
“But that, of course, depends on what we mean by ‘result’.”
[SDA stands to walk along the shore, gesturing as he speaks for emphasis.]
“One may ask, ‘what was the point? To what purpose were millions and millions spent trying to consummate a relationship between species that are so genetically incompatible?’ The answer, of course, depends on whom you ask. To the Templetonians the goal was to try to give birth to a modern kind of creature that has not been seen for over a century; a kind of Natural Theologian, or Scientist-Priest if you will. Their efforts of course have failed miserably because what they were after is rather like this fossil Trilobite.”
[He holds up a flat slab of rock with a trilobite fossil. Scene cut to a Cambrian sea teaming with live Trilobites of all manner of shapes and sizes, scuttling around and feeding].
“Once, millions of years ago, the seas teamed with these delicate creatures. They seemed to dominate life in the oceans until new species of life evolved…”
[A shadow falls upon the late Cambrian floor, camera pans up to show a primitive fish].
“The trilobites, once full of promise and potential, were soon outclassed in the struggle of existence, and they quickly vanished forever. The Templetonians, through the continuous flow of cash from their Queen, were in effect trying to bring back the Trilobite. But their target of course was to revive the Natural Theologian into the modern world. This was to be a being that could show us the mind of God through the study of his works in nature. But today, like a trilobite in a modern sea, a Natural Theologian cannot long exist in a world where survival in science depends on observation and reproducible results.”
[He tosses the fossil into the sea].
“But then there is the other party in this… unnatural mating effort; the Cash-strapped scientists. How, might you ask, have they fared in these primitive and ultimately fruitless trysts between Science and Religion? Have they not also gone the way of the Natural Theologian or the Trilobite? Far from it.”
[SDA stops. His eyes twinkle].
“The Scientists who have mated with the Templeton Queen have profited quite handsomely. Although they have been weakened in their reputation, their numbers are increasing and show no sign of diminishing. It seems that for now, such Scientists will remain among us because their source of sustenance is born every minute.”
[Camera pans away to a horizon filled with flying, crying seabirds. Closing music swells.]
Te, he! I can hear Sir David’s voice in your lines. Well played.
I’d love a shot at filming that. Who shall we get to play Sir David? Is your schedule free?
Mark – PBS and the BBC have expressed an interest in jointly producing your script.
Have your people call their people.
Let’s do lunch soonest.
Best,
Swifty
Well, that was fast! But lets’ see… I would have to get ‘people’ first.
Fast, alright. How do you think Lazar got tagged with the sobriquet “Swifty”? He once put together three movie deals for Humphrey Bogart in a single day.
sub
“…all you scientists who besmirch your good names by lining up at its trough.”
Well, that was a bit harsh.
“In fact, the Templeton money was already split into 3 distinct legal entities (he didn’t give the details).”
ZOMG! Proof of the Trinity! Francis Collins would be impressed.