John Templeton Foundation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The John Templeton Foundation was established in 1987 by international money manager Sir John Templeton; it is usually referred to simply as the Templeton Foundation. The mission of the Templeton Foundation, according to its website, is:
to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for scientific discovery on what scientists and philosophers call the 'Big Questions.' Ranging from questions about the laws of nature to the nature of creativity and consciousness, the Foundation’s philanthropic vision is derived from Sir John’s resolute belief that rigorous research and cutting-edge scholarship is at the very heart of new discoveries and human progress.
Contents |
[edit] Activities
One of the main activities of the Foundation is the dispersal of prizes; in 2004, for example, John Templeton on behalf of the Foundation presented the makers of the controversial movie The Passion of the Christ with a $50,000 "Epiphany Prize for the Most Inspirational Movie" and writer August Turak with a $100,000 "Power of Purpose" prize; a full list of prizes the Foundation awards yearly can be found on their website[1].
Individuals associated with the foundation include Paul Davies, Max Tegmark, John D. Barrow, Stephen Post, Martin Seligman, Harold Koenig, Laurence Iannaccone, Nicholas Colangello, and Alexander Astin. MediaTransparency lists grant receiving institutions for 1998 to 2004; the top five are Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences ($23 million), National Institute for Healthcare Research ($8 million), Philadelphia Center for Religion & Science ($4 million), Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science ($4 million), and Science and Spirit Resources, Inc. ($4 million)[2].
The Foundation also has media presence. It runs its own publisher, Templeton Foundation Press, a newsletter and associated website Science & Theology News and publishes the periodical "In Character: A Journal of Everyday Virtues". It is published three times a year; each issue has a theme such as "thrift" or "purpose".
The "day-to-day" management of the foundation since 1995 is by president John M. Templeton, Jr., M.D., the son of its founder. Templeton, Jr. is an evangelical Christian and the head of Let Freedom Ring, Inc., a group that raises funds for conservative causes[3].
[edit] Political orientation
A 1997 article in Slate Magazine noted that the Templeton Foundation had given significant financial support to groups, causes and individuals considered conservative, including gifts to Gertrude Himmelfarb, Milton Friedman, Walter E. Williams, Julian Lincoln Simon and Mary Lefkowitz, and referred to John Templeton, Sr., as a "conservative sugar daddy"[4].
In addition to suggestions that the foundation has a conservative bent, controversy exists over the foundation's support for intelligent design proponents. In 1996 the foundation awarded a prize to an Australian cosmologist who supports intelligent design, in 1999 provided a grant to the Discovery Institute[5], and has also funded the production of "The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery", a 2004 book supporting intelligent design by Guillermo Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute [6].
In 2005, the foundation disputed suggestions that they have a conservative agenda or they promote intelligent design[7], saying that they may support individual projects that support intelligent design, but that they do not support the "intelligent design movement."[8] The foundation has also funded critics of the movement. The foundation, who previously provided grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, later asked intelligent design proponents to submit proposals for actual research, "They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned. "From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said.[9]
The Templeton Foundation has since rejected the Discovery Institute's entreaties for more funding, Harper states. "They're political - that for us is problematic," and that while Discovery has "always claimed to be focused on the science," "what I see is much more focused on public policy, on public persuasion, on educational advocacy and so forth."[10]
[edit] Relations with the scientific community
The Foundation is well known for supporting through prizes the work of scientists who suggest connections between "spiritual" and "scientific" realities. Famous scientists honored by the Foundation include Charles Townes, who won the 2005 "Templeton Prize", an award of $1.5 million, for his work as a "leading advocate for the convergence of science and religion".
The supportive stance of religious thinkers has led to criticism from some members of the scientific community; Sean M. Carroll a cosmologist and atheist from the University of Chicago wrote, in describing his self-recusal from a conference he discovered was funded by the Foundation, 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. It's all about appearances."[11]
