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.