Once again the World Science Festival (WSF) will take place in New York City in May, the brainchild of Brian Greene and Tracy Day. Let me begin by affirming that I’m all in favor of the Festival as a way to excite the public about science. Greene and Day have put enormous effort into this event, which has been a live affair, and a successful one, since 2008.

But there’s a fly in the ointment: one of the big sponsors of the WSF is the John Templeton Foundation (JTF), which was also one of its founding benefactors. This is shown on the 2015 Festival Website:

Let us now remind ourselves of the JTF’s ongoing mission, as stated on its site:

Here we see that the “Big Questions” that Templeton funds involve “human purpose and ultimate reality”, questions which of course cannot be investigated by science. (If “ultimate reality” refers simply to a reality about which we know everything, then that’s not science but something numinous or godly.) In fact Sir John’s purpose in endowing the Foundation appears to be his notion that science could tell us something about God, which is confirmed by the second paragraph’s statement that Sir John believed that science could give us “new spiritual information.”

The aims of the JTF—to blur the boundaries between science and the spiritual—haven’t changed, although they have realized that also funding real science having no obvious connection to God gives the Foundation a special “scientific” cachet. And so they do fund (as they do in the WSF) some projects and programs that are neither spiritual nor religious. But, given the Foundation’s mission statement, I suspect they do this to corral famous scientists into their paddock of thoroughbreds, hoping that their glory will illuminate JTF’s less scientific and more religious endeavors.

We can see this mixture of science and spirituality—and Templeton’s “thoroughbred stable” mentality—in several symposia in this year’s WSF Templet0n-sponsored “Big Ideas Series.” Here’s one on free will:

Now Templeton recently sponsored a huge project on free will, giving more than $4 million to a group of scientists, philosophers, and (of course) theologians to masticate the problem. Alfred Mele happened to be the sponsor of that program, and so of course he’s in the Templeton symposium about it. Experience has taught me that at Templeton-sponsored events we’re likely to find people who are or have been given money by the Foundation. And indeed, a bit of digging shows that all four of the participants fall into this class:

Alfred Mele was the sponsor of $4.4 million grant on Free Will from Templeton running through 2013. Mele now has another “running grant on the philosophy and science of self-control,” and admits that between the two projects he’s received 9 million dollars. Not all that money went to Mele, of course: he’s the sponsor of these programs, which means that he gets part of the dough and distributes the rest to his collaborators.

Tamar Kushnir is supported by a Templeton grant that started in 2015. Her curriculum vitae describes the grant:

John Templeton Foundation Science of Self Control (with co-PIs Alison Gopnik, and John Campbell, UC Berkeley), “Self-Control and Conceptions of Free Will, Desire and Normative Constraint: A Cross-Cultural Developmental Investigation.”

Christof Koch gave three Templeton-sponsored lectures on free will at Vanderbilt University in 2007, including one on “God, Consciousness, and Free Will” (he appears to be a determinist and perhaps a very weak compatibilist).

Azim Shariff was also funded by Templeton as a co-project leader (from 2012-2014) on the JTF-sponsored project, “Does Complex Religion Make Good People?”

That’s four out of four participants in the Templeton stable. And that’s par for the course. (The moderator, Emily Senay, appears to have no Templeton connection.) These participants will likely be handsomely remunerated for their efforts, though I can’t be sure about that. But what I’d like to know is this: did Templeton decide or suggest who got to speak at this symposium? If so, that’s a severe conflict of interest, compromising the scientific objectivity of such a panel. As far as I know, when U.S. government organizations like the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation fund symposia, working groups, or meetings, the participants are chosen by scientists, not the funding organizations.

If Templeton had no say about who spoke, then it’s a remarkable coincidence that all four participants have received money from the Foundation.

My friend Dan Dennett has been a persistent critic of Templeton. Even in his largely favorable review of Alfred Mele’s book Free: Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will in Prospect Magazine, Dan had some choice words about Templeton, suggesting that although Mele’s work was good, he appears to be a bit compromised by his association with the JTF (my emphasis):

[I]t is important to note that Mele’s research, as he scrupulously announces, and not in fine print, is supported by the Templeton Foundation. In fact, Mele is the director of a $4.4m project, “Free Will: Empirical and Philosophical Investigations,” funded by the Templeton Foundation, almost certainly the most munificent funding of any philosopher in history. The Templeton Foundation has a stated aim of asking and answering the “Big Questions,” and its programmes include both science and theology. In fact, yoking its support of science with its support of theology (and “individual freedom and free markets”) is the very core of its strategy. The Templeton Foundation supports, with no strings attached, a great deal of excellent science that is otherwise hard to fund. The Foundation supports theological and ideological explorations as well, and it uses the prestige it garners from its even-handed and generous support of non-ideological science to bolster the prestige of its ideological forays. It could easily divide itself into two (or three) foundations, with different names, and fund the same research—I know, because I challenged a Templeton director on this score and was told that they could indeed, but would not, do this.

Alfred Mele is in an unenviable position, and there is really nothing he can do about it. Was his decision to stay strictly neutral on the compatibilism issue a wise philosophical tactic, permitting him to tackle a more modest project, demonstrating the weakness of the scientific argument to date, or was it a case of simply postponing the more difficult issue: if, as science seems to show, our decision-making is not accomplished with the help of any quantum magic, do we still have a variety of free will that can support morality and responsibility? The Templeton Foundation insists that it is not anti-science, and demonstrates this with the bulk of its largesse, but it also has an invested interest in keeping science from subverting some of its ideological aspirations, and it just happens that Mele’s work fits handsomely with that goal. And that, as I persist in telling my friends in science whenever they raise the issue, is why I advise them not to get too close to Templeton.

See also a post I wrote in 2009, in which both Dan and philosopher Anthony Grayling refused to cooperate with a journalist who was working on a Templeton-sponsored project on materialism. As Dan wrote to the journalist:

The only reason I am replying is to let you know that I disapprove of the Templeton Foundation’s attempt to tie theologians to the coat tails of scientists and philosophers who actually do have expertise on this topic.

Anthony had a similar response:

I cannot agree with the Templeton Foundation’s project of trying to make religion respectable by conflating it with science; this is like mixing astrology with astronomy or voodoo with medical research, and I disapprove of Templeton’s use of its great wealth to bribe compliance with this project. Templeton is to all intents and purposes a propaganda organisation for religious outlooks; it should honestly say so and equally honestly devote its money to prop up the antique superstitions it favours, and not pretend that questions of religion are of the same kind and on the same level as those of science – by which means it persistently seeks to muddy the waters and keep religion credible in lay eyes. It is for this reason I don’t take part in Templeton-associated matters.

So I was saddened to see that not just Dan, but another friend, Steve Pinker, are also participating in another Big Questions symposium, one with woo-ish overtones (see update below; Dan has withdrawn):

Note the question at hand: “did we get here through numerous baby steps or in one giant leap?” Seriously? One giant leap? This is not Apollo 11, but human evolution we’re talking about. The question is already answered. I can assume only that the “one giant leap” has some goddy overtones, though I have no doubt that neither Dan nor Steve would support that, nor offer any kind words about gods. Why they’re participating, especially given Dan’s disapproval of Templeton, is beyond my ken.

And an update:  As a courtesy, I informed Dan and my other friends mentioned here that I was going to put up this post, but Dan had already decided to withdraw from the World Science Festival because of Templeton funding. Kudos to him!

Here’s his email to the WSF, which I have permission to reproduce (I’ve readacted the names of the recipients as they’re not relevant). According to the email, Dan wasn’t told that Templeton was sponsoring the session, and I consider that both derelict and deliberate:

Dear [name redacted]:

I have just learned of the Templeton Foundation’s funding role in the session I was to be participating in, and I don’t do Templeton-funded events, as I have often made clear in public and in print. I wish I had been told of this when first invited. It would have saved us both a lot of time and effort. I remember all too well the appalling sessions curated by The Templeton Foundation at the Cambridge University Darwin Bicentennial in 2009, which were an embarrassment to science and to Cambridge. I don’t know the extent of the advising or consulting role of the Templeton Foundation in the World Science Foundation’s plans, but since I was not informed from the outset about the Templeton Fundation’s role, I consider this in itself to be more than adequate grounds for declining, at this late date, your kind invitation.

I would very much appreciate it if you would forward this email to the other scheduled participants on the panel, and to the people in charge of the book-talk session I had scheduled on Saturday afternoon.  I apologize to THEM for backing out at this late date, but I made my decision as soon as I had confirmed what I had been told: that the session was one of those sponsored by the Templeton Foundation.

Please cancel my hotel reservations and airline tickets.

Sincerely,

Daniel C. Dennett

Finally, I want to be even-handed here. JTF does sponsor some symposia that do appear to be pure science, but of course that has been the case for some time. Here is one of them from this year’s WSF:

But I don’t think for a minute that the Foundation is interested in advancing science that has no spiritual overtones. They are coopting scientists into their stable and, as Dan noted above, they refuse to separate the pure-science projects from the spiritual projects. In a time of increasingly limited funding for science, you have to have a certain amount of moxie (and principle) to turn down Templeton’s dosh.

I have more to say about this in The Albatross.  Of course I have no doubt at all that Greene and other participants in the WSF will ignore what I say, for I am a small fish without influence. And, as Anthony Grayling wrote in an email today (quoted with permission):

You have only to look at the Templeton website stuff on connecting science to ‘the Big Questions on purpose and ultimate reality’ – sic for the capitalised B and capitalised Q and sic for ‘purpose and ultimate reality’ – to see what these guys are after. They are buying scientific respectability for their agenda.

Money talks so loud it deafens almost everyone.

And that’s the bottom line.

Trigger warning: Internet drama.

I don’t know much about Joss Whedon, but apparently a lot of readers do. As his Wikipedia bio notes, he’s a movie polymath:

[Whedon is] an American screenwriter, film and television director, film and television producer, comic book author, composer and actor. He is the founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-founder of Bellwether Pictures, and is best known as the creator of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), Angel (1999–2004), Firefly (2002), Dollhouse (2009–10) and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–present). Whedon co-wrote Toy Story (1995), wrote and directed Serenity (2005), co-wrote and directed Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (2008), co-wrote and produced The Cabin in the Woods(2012), and wrote and directed The Avengers (2012) and its sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).

And, by several accounts, he’s just quit Twi**er over a bunch of abuse he’s gotten for his latest movie: “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” As Time magazine reports, the firestorm is apparently over the depiction of characters in the movie and some of their language, although the magazine is short on specifics:

Whedon’s departure did create a wave of speculation on Twitter that he closed his account because of “death threats.” A search of tweets directed at him over the past week definitely turned up some deep ugliness, with some of the abusive users urging him to “die” or “commit suicide” over plot points they didn’t like in Age of Ultron. Although these comments are clearly disturbing, there was no unifying complaint or groundswell of attack beyond just the random (but all-too-typical) viciousness of anonymous social media trolls.

The most abusive bullying came from viewers who objected to Black Widow’s tentative relationship with The Hulk’s Bruce Banner and another scene in which she was briefly captured by Ultron. There was also anger about how he depicted Quicksilver and a number of other plot points that “fans” of this comic book title apparently felt justified harassment. Filtered out and pasted together, as some on Twitter have done, it looks like significant vitriol – but compared to the immense volume of conversation about this film on the social media platform, it’s really background static.

A post by Brother Russell Blackford at his Metamagician and the Hellfire Club site links to some of the abuse, in which Whedon was called, among other things, a “racist, ableist, transphobic misogynist,” with some people (mostly anonymous, of course) saying they’d like to punch him in the face or put a foot up his ass. Have a look at some of those tw**ts: it’s unbelievable. Apparently the “misogyny” trope (the term for someone who hates women) was very common.

Yet if anybody’s an unlikely target for this kind of invective, it’s Whedon. As one reader wrote me (a woman, by the way): “Whedon has a name for creating writing strong female roles. If anyone has been a active advocate for women, it would be him. He is most famous for writing Buffy the Vampire Slayer which was a long-running TV series, and as silly as the premise was, it was much loved by kids everywhere and even gained the approval of academic feminists. . . Joss has always been fucking awesome. He is the exact opposite of a misogynist.”

But let’s back up. What, exactly, motivated the invective heaped on Whedon? I asked Russell for his analysis, for I know he knows a lot about comic-book culture; and I also did some digging on the Internet. Here’s what Russell wrote me:

I do have some insight into the background, having seen the movie and knowing a bit about the Marvel Comics stories that it draws on. There seem to be four things that have led to the attacks:

1. The movie is as violent (in a stylised way, etc.) as you’d expect of a superhero movie. There’s a scene, as I mention in my review, where it makes some fun of male competitiveness, etc., but as you’d expect a lot of it consists of battle scenes. [Jonathan] McIntosh has been banging on about this on Twitter: “toxic masculinity” and so on.

2. The main female superheroine is the Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson. In her backstory, she was a Russian spy, trained to be a perfect/near-superhuman assassin before she turned good, etc., etc. Some people seem to object to the revelation that she was trained and brainwashed from childhood, which I suppose might arguably deny her agency and responsibility or something. Second, she is captured at one stage by the villain – the malevolent artificial intelligence, Ultron – creating a “damsel in distress” situation. Third, it’s revealed that she was forcibly sterilised as part of the process of brainwashing/training her. In a scene with Bruce Banner (the Hulk), with whom there’s a romantic sub-plot, she reveals this, and she comments that both of them are monsters. This has been taken to indicate that Whedon thinks that women who can’t bear children are monsters. In context, that’s not what she’s saying at all. She’s reassuring him, in response to his fear that any children he had would be freaks, that she can’t have children anyway. She also tells him that both of them are, in their ways, monstrous.

3. At one stage Tony Stark/Iron Man – who is always a bit of an ass – apparently jokes (I missed this entirely) that if he were in charge he’d institute the right of prima noctis. This is apparently viewed as a rape joke.

4. Whedon is supposed to be a racist for presenting two characters – Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch – as Eastern European but not of any other particular ethnicity beyond the fictional Balkan country they are from. In the comics, they were long supposed to be the children of Magneto (who is Jewish) and his Roma wife, and they were brought up as Roma. Eliding this supposedly makes Whedon/Marvel Studios racist. I liked the connection with Magneto myself, and I regret that Marvel has now altered it in the comics as well, but much of what is going on here relates to intellectual property rights. The movie rights to Magneto are held by FOX, not by Marvel Studios. The IP thing with these companies/properties is a mess.

Some of these points about the movie could be worth civil, subtle discussion by aficionados, but nothing in them could possibly excuse the way Whedon has been abused.

Even the feminist website Feministing can’t bring itself to fully damn Whedon for the joke discussed in point 3, noting that it might have been used to poke fun at Tony rather than express the sentiments of the moviemaker. (As Russell said, “Tony is a bit of an ass.”) Given Whedon’s history, I suspect that the first explanation is more likely. As for Whedon being “transphobic,” I haven’t seen any substantive reason for that accusation.

Finally, Russell’s post calls out those who became vicious toward Whedon. I don’t use the word “haters” lightly, but there is a subset of people on the internet who are always poised to take offense at anything; they are the internet equivalent of those Muslims who fly into a rage when somebody draws Muhammad. And their hatred just compounds itself as individuals work each other up into a mutual frenzy, creating a torrent of abuse of the kind that Whedon and many others have endured. This, of course, holds not just for Whedon, but for anyone who’s been subject to “internet shaming.” Here’s an excerpt from Blackford’s post:

Whatever Whedon’s personal faults may be, and whatever legitimate critiques of Avengers: Age of Ultron may be available from a range of viewpoints, many of the responses on Twitter are unfair, unprovoked, vile, cowardly, and morally despicable, and I utterly, unequivocally denounce and condemn them. This won’t prevent me, in the future, from making whatever criticisms of the movie I might think fair and fitting; however, I will always try to show appropriate generosity and charity toward Whedon, as I always do when discussing movies, books, and other such cultural products (and their creators). That attitude is obviously not the case for the people who have attacked Whedon with the poorly evidenced and patently ridiculous claims that he is a racist, a misogynist, etc., etc.

Those terms have not entirely lost their hurtfulness for those of us who support basic ideas of social justice, although they are starting to leak away their meaning as – increasingly – they are applied to decent, gentle, thoughtful people with solid liberal and feminist credentials. They are used as a weapon against precisely those sorts of people because they are the people who can be most hurt by them. It’s a case of using words as weapons – of using them to wound – rather than using them accurately.

It’s long past time to push back against this.

Taking the point a bit wider… I am very unhappy with the sort of personal nastiness – even against individuals who should be acknowledged, respected, and assisted as cultural and political allies – that has become so prevalent on the internet over the past few years. Again and again, reasonable charity and basic decency are not even factors. Accusations are made in the hope of inflicting psychological wounds and social harm.

Very many people have disappointed me in recent years with their abdication from the realm of rational debate and discussion – preferring the tactics of smearing, abuse, and psychological destruction. The result is a toxic environment for everyone. People trying to oppose it are often poorly organised and confused about what they are trying to achieve, and some of them are prone to counterproductive actions. In certain cases that I won’t specify, I am unhappy with the approaches they have taken. Some appear to have unpleasant ideologies and agendas of their own – but who can be sure these days?

I don’t sanction that kind of language used towards anybody, much less Whedon, and it’s even less justifiable when the people who use it hide behind pseudonyms. As for threats of physical harm, they’re reprehensible, even though most are clearly wish-thinking. But these people are cowards, pure and simple. If you want to accuse someone of dastardly ideological crimes, have the guts to at least use your name! (By the way, I’m pretty sure that none of the readers here engage in this behavior; I’m just discussing a trend that saddens me.)

I try to avoid this kind of abuse on my site, either from me or the readers, and I hope I’ve largely succeeded, though there are  times when I can’t hold back some invective—particularly concerning the hyper-religious or creationists. But this kind of manufactured outrage has gone on long enough, and its connection with slurs, invective, and obscenities is disgusting.

So let me make just one point. The issues in the movie can be subject to debate. They are not something to ostracize somebody over, or to prompt calls for putting a foot up somone’s ass, particularly when the fundament belongs to someone with a history of pro-feminist views. This also goes for those feminists who have been attacked, sometimes by truly misogynistic men and sometimes by other feminists who are ideologically opposed to their brand of feminism. Nothing is gained by such mud-slinging, or calling people things like “douchebags”. That’s not any way to change people’s minds, nor to have a debate that third parties can take an intellectual interest in.

This is the reason, of course, that I use Twi**er only to publicize my website posts. It may be good for learning about articles, but it’s certainly not useful for discussing substantive issues. Too often it serves to inflame rather than enlighten.

Oh, and one further point. Although harassment is not debate, it also works the other way around. Serious criticism should not be taken as harassment.