John Templeton Foundation: Information from Answers.com

来源:百度文库 编辑:神马文学网 时间:2024/03/29 17:43:44
John Templeton Foundation
The John Templeton Foundation was established in1987 by renowned investor andphilanthropist SirJohn Templeton; it is usually referred to simply as theTempleton Foundation. The mission of the Templeton Foundation (from its website), is:
to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for scientific discovery onwhat scientists and philosophers call the ‘Big Questions.‘Ranging from questions about the laws of nature to the nature ofcreativity and consciousness, the Foundation’s philanthropicvision is derived from Sir John’s resolute belief that rigorousresearch and cutting-edge scholarship is at the very heart of newdiscoveries and human progress.
The Foundation’s motto is ‘how little we know, how eager to learn’[1].In accordance with its key founding principle, the Foundation has afirm commitment and focus onrigorous scientific research. One of the main activities of theTempleton Foundation is grantmaking. According to the Foundation,it gives away about $60 million a year in research grants and programs[2].
Grants are made in core funding areas that allign with the Foundation‘s mission statement and Charter. Typically, grants areapproved in a process that incorporates scientific peer review. The Foundationfunds numerous high-level scientific research projects, usually by means of international competitions to which research teamsfrom large universities apply. Grants are subject to standard peer review and approved by an international jury. For example,with the cooperation of the University of Cambridge, 18 grants were recently awarded for research on the origin and evolution oflife and anthropology[3] Another project has attributed 30grants for research in the area of physics[4] Anotherprogram has attributed 14 grants in the area of cosmology[5]
Activities
The Foundation splits up its main activities into the following areas:
• Natural Sciences
• Human Sciences
• Philosophy & Theology
• Character Development
• Freedom & Free Enterprise
• Gifted Education
Natural Sciences
Scientific study of matters that seek to advance discovery in areas engaging “life’s biggest questions” is a major area ofactivity for the Foundation. These areas include questions on the laws of nature and the nature of the universe[6]. It supports work principally by scientists, but alsocollaborations between scientists and other academics, such as theologians and philosophers. Many of these projects attempt toanswer some of the big metaphysical questions, such as ‘Why there is something rather than nothing? What does it mean to behuman? What is the nature of free will?
One example of the work funded by the Foundation has been taking place at the Oxford Centre for Science of the Mind[7]. In a project led by BaronessSusan Greenfield,scientists have been using hi-tech brain scans to examine how personalbeliefphysically affects our brains. Part of the program of work has involvedscientists talking to theologians to get a better insightinto whether different people’s brains respond differently to thebeliefs they do or don’t hold. Commenting on the project,Baroness Greenfield has said, “For the first time to actually have atheologian talking to brain imaging experts, which we have,will give us some insight. It won’t give us all the answersimmediately, but what is wonderful is it will be a start.”[8]
Natural Sciences – the Humble Approach Initiative
The Foundation is the sponsor of the ‘Humble Approach Initiative’. Based upon its founder’s maxim that ‘humility is a gatewayto greater understanding and opens doors to progress’[9],the initiative holds regular symposiums around the world that bring together small groups of scholars and scientists to focus ona particular theme within a interdisciplinary framework[10]. Scientific symposiums under the banner of the ‘Humble Approach Initiative’ have resulted in thefollowing published books:
Universe or Multiverse[11]; Evolution andthe Capacity for Commitment[12]; The Link betweenReligion and Health: Psycho-neuroimmunology and the Faith Factor[13]; In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in aScientific World[14]; The Far Future Universe:Eschatology from a Cosmic Perspective[15]; FromCells to Souls – and Beyond: Changing Portraits of Human Nature[16]; The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis[17]; The Psychology of Gratitude[18]; Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for LastingFulfillment[19]; Many Worlds: The New Universe,Extraterrestrial Life & The Theological Implications[20]; From Complexity to Life: On the Emergency of Life and Meaning[21];
Human Sciences
Examination of the spiritual nature of the individual is anothercore area of activity for the Foundation. According to theFoundation, Sir John Templeton has always held a strong curiosity andbelief in the ability of science to help examine the natureof ‘spiritual principles’ such as altruism, creativity and gratitude[22].Templeton-funded Human Sciences projects draw together a range ofexperts from anthropologists andpsychologists to economists and educationalists. In 2001, the TempletonFoundation helped to launch the Institute for Research onUnlimited Love,[23] with an $8 million grant. Defined bySir John Templeton, “Unlimited love means total constant love for every person with no exception”[24]. The Institute has initiated nearly 50 scientific research projects across theUnited States, includingHarvard,Yale,Stanford, andPrinceton.
Philosophy & Theology
A new initiative of the Foundation seeks to advance discovery in areas that include philosophical and theological questions,including ethics and moral philosophy, the philosophy of mathematics and logic, and the philosophy and history of science[25] One recent grant in this area supported aninternational symposium inVienna, Austria, entitled “Horizons of Truth: Logic, Foundations ofMathematics, and the Quest for Understanding the Nature of Knowledge,” celebrating the 100th birthday of mathematicianKurt Gödel[26]
Character Development
The Foundation supports ‘Character Development’ programs. The goal of this activity is, according to the Foundation, to“reinforce positive values such as honesty, compassion, self-discipline and respect, and support innovative research on theimportance of character”. Two initiatives in this program include the Purpose Prize[27] and the Laws of Life Essay Contest[28].
Freedom & Free Enterprise
A new area of activity for the Templeton Foundation is the funding of research projects and teaching programs that promoteenterprise-based solutions to poverty. The Foundation claims it will be providing upwards of $25 million annually to theseprojects by 2010[29].It recently awarded a total of$1.5 million to three initiatives to help promote public understandingof how entrepreneurship and market reforms are alleviatingpoverty in developing countries[30]. One of therecipients wasAlvaro Vargas Llosa, author of Liberty for Latin America, who isusing the grant to examine how market-based institutions are helping to alleviate poverty in Latin America and in other emergingnations[31]. Another Templeton research grant in thisarea funded a two-year project, “Private Schools Serving the Educational Needs of the Poor: A Global Research and DisseminationProject,” under the direction of Professor James Tooley of the University of Newcastle[32] Findings suggest that the root causes of poverty can be best addressed whenpeople have a stake in their own educational destiny.
Gifted Education
The Templeton Foundation has a program of activity to help encourage young people with ‘exceptional talents’ particularly inmathematics and science[33]. For example, one Foundationgrant helped the Center for Talented Youth atJohns Hopkins University launchCogito.org[34], an online community website that allowstalented young people to form relationships with peers from around the world.
Templeton Prize
In addition to its central activity funding scientific studies, the Foundation awards the annual $1.5 millionTempleton Prize[35] to theliving individual who best exemplifies "trying various ways for discoveries and breakthroughs to expand human perceptions ofdivinity and to help in the acceleration of divine creativity." In 2007 the Templeton Prize was awarded to Canadian philosopherCharles Taylor (philosopher). Taylor is known for his belief that Westernsecular society does not satisfy the natural human desire for meaning. Commenting on the Templeton Prize award to Taylor, theUnited Kingdom’s Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks said, “If there is such a thing as a saint in a secular age, he deserves thattitle.”[36] Two recent prize winners wereCharles H. Townes, Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California,Berkeley, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964[37] for his investigations into the properties of microwaves and his co-invention of the laser[38], and theoretical cosmologist GeorgeF.R. Ellis of the University of Cape Town[39],who advocates “balancing the rationality of evidence-based science with the causal effect of forces beyond the explanation ofhard science, including issues such as aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and meaning”[40]
The prize was first awarded in 1973 and is adjusted to always be slightly higher than theNobelPrize. In 2007 the prize was $1.5million.
Past reciepients of the prize have also includedMother Teresa,Billy Graham,Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn andBaba Amte.
Other prizes
In addition to its main activities and the Templeton Prize, the Foundation also awards many other prizes. In2004, for example, the Foundation presented the makers of the controversial movieThe Passion of the Christ with a $50,000 "Epiphany Prize for the Most Inspirational Movie". In2007 the Epiphany Prize went to Cheers and Laughter[41].
The Purpose Prize, sponsored by Civic Ventures with grants from The Atlantic Philanthropies and the John Templeton Foundation,annually provides five awards of $100,000 and ten awards of $10,000 to people over 60 who are taking on society’s biggestchallenges. The inaugural Purpose Prizes in 2006 went to Conchy Bretos, Charles Dey, Marilyn Gaston and Gayle Porter, W. WilsonGoode, Sr., and Judea Pearl and Akbar Ahmed[42].
It also awarded writer August Turak with an earlier $100,000 "Power of Purpose" prize. A full list of prizes the Foundationawards yearly can be found on their website[43].
Other details
Individuals associated with Templeton-funded initiatives or who have recieved support from the Templeton Foundation includePaul Davies,Max Tegmark,John D. Barrow, Stephen Post,MartinSeligman, Harold Koenig,Laurence Iannaccone,Nicholas Colangello, andAlexander Astin. Organizationsthat are associated or which have revieved grants include Civic Ventures,Junior Achievement, theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS),Rotary International, and many major researchuniversities, includingYale University,HarvardUniversity,MIT, theCalifornia Institute of Technology,OxfordUniversity,Princeton University, andCambridge University, among others.MediaTransparencylists grant receiving institutions for 1998 to 2004; the top five areCenter for Theology and the Natural Sciences ($23 million), National Institute for Healthcare Research ($8 million), Philadelphia Center forReligion & Science ($4 million), Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science ($4million), and Science and Spirit Resources, Inc. ($4 million)[44].
The Foundation also hasmedia presence. It runs its ownpublisher, Templeton Foundation Press and publishes the periodical “In Character: A Journal of EverydayVirtues”[45]. It is published three times a year; eachissue has a theme such as “thrift” or “purpose” and, in Spring 2007, “honesty.”
Management
The "day-to-day" management of the foundation since 1995 is by presidentJohn M.Templeton, Jr., M.D., the son of its founder. John Templeton, Jr. is anevangelicalChristian and as an independently wealthy individual, is active in philanthropy which is outside of the mandate of theTempleton Foundation itself. He is the chairman of Let Freedom Ring, Inc., a 502(c)(4) non-profit organization which ‘promotes constituional government, economic freedom and traditionalvalues[46] group that raises funds forconservative causes[47]. Templeton Jr has always maintained that his own personal religious beliefs do not affect hisability to administer the Foundation in accordance with the wishes of his father[48]. The Templeton Foundation has also gone to great lengths to stress that it is non-political with nobias towards any one faith[49].
Political orientation
Like all501c3 organizations, the Templeton Foundation is prohibited from engaging directly inpolitical activity. However, controversy exists. A 1997 article inSlate Magazine notedthat the Templeton Foundation had given significant financial support to groups, causes and individuals consideredconservative, including gifts toGertrude Himmelfarb,Milton Friedman,Walter E. Williams,Julian Lincoln Simon andMary Lefkowitz, and referred to John Templeton, Sr., as a "conservative sugardaddy"[50]. The Foundation also has a history ofsupporting theCato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, as well as projects at majorresearch centers and universities that explore themes related to free-market ideology, such as Hernando de Soto‘s Instituto Libertad Y Democracia and theX Prize Foundation.
The "Intelligent Design" controversy
In addition to suggestions that the foundation has a conservative/libertarian bent, controversy exists over the foundation‘ssupport forintelligent design proponents. In 1996 the foundation awarded a prize toan Australian cosmologist who supports intelligent design, in 1999 provided a grant to theDiscovery Institute[51], andhas also funded the production of "The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery", a 2004 booksupporting intelligent design byGuillermo Gonzalez, a senior fellow atthe Discovery Institute[52].
In 2005, the foundation disputed suggestions that they promoteintelligentdesign[53], saying that they may supportindividual projects that support intelligent design, but that they do not support the "intelligent design movement."[54] The foundation has also funded critics of the movement. A New York Times article said thefoundation asked intelligent design proponents to submit proposals for actual research and quoted Charles L. Harper Jr., seniorvice president at the Templeton Foundation, as saying "They never came in" and that while he was skeptical from the beginning,other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned. "From the point of view ofrigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don‘t come out very well in our world ofscientific review," he said.[55] The Templeton Foundationhas since rejected the Discovery Institute‘s entreaties for more funding, Harper stated. "They‘re political - that for us isproblematic," and that while Discovery has "always claimed to be focused on the science," "what I see is much more focused onpublic policy, on public persuasion, on educational advocacy and so forth."?"[56][57]
In 2007 in the LA Times Pamela Thompson, Vice President for Communications of the Templeton Foundation wrote "We do notbelieve that the science underpinning the intelligent-design movement is sound, we do not support research or programs that denylarge areas of well-documented scientific knowledge, and the foundation is a nonpolitical entity and does not engage in orsupport political movements."[58]The same day the WallStreet Journal also included a letter from the same Pamela Thompsonmaking much the same point: "The foundation doesn‘t supportthe political movement known as ‘Intelligent Design.‘ This is for threereasons: We don‘t believe the science underpinning the‘Intelligent Design‘ movement is sound, we don‘t support research orprograms that deny large areas of well-documented scientificknowledge and the foundatioon is a non-political entity and does notengage in, or suport, political movements."[59]
In February 2007 theDiscovery Institute began a campaign to counter theunfavorable statements of Harper and Thompson citing a "report" published on the pro-Intelligent Designwiki, ResearchID.[60] This campaign quotedclarifications from Charles Harper of the Templeton Foundation denouncing intelligent design and distancing the TempletonFoundation from the intelligent design movement, notably a clarification by Harper that a Wall Street Journal article published"false information" that "mention[ed] the John Templeton Foundation in a way suggesting that the Foundation has been a concertedpatron and sponsor of the so-called Intelligent Design ("ID") position,"[61] ResearchID and Discovery Institute claimed that this was indicative of larger errors and bias: "Themedia has misrepresented the record of the intelligent design research community."[62] Critics of intelligent design responded by noting that though Harper appears to have "confirmedthat while the first statement about a formal call for applications was false, the real point of the article, that ID advocatesdon‘t do very well in terms of actual research and scientific review, remains true and valid" a point the Discovery Instituteglosses over.[63] The Templeton Foundation posted aresponse to the Discovery Institute‘s campaign, saying:
In response to errors and misrepresentations stated in the February 28, 2007 ResearchID.com blog post: 1. The John TempletonFoundation has never made a call-for-proposals to the ID Community. 2. The Henry Schaefer grant was from the Origins ofBiological Complexity program. Schaefer is a world‘s leading chemist, and his research has nothing whatsoever to do with ID. 3.Bill Dembski‘s grant was not for the book ‘No Free Lunch.‘ Dembski was given funds to write another book on Orthodox Theology,which was not on ID, however he has never written the book. From our FAQ... Does the Foundation support I.D.? No. We do notsupport the political movement known as "Intelligent Design." This is for three reasons 1) we do not believe the scienceunderpinning the "Intelligent Design" movement is sound, 2) we do not support research or programs that deny large areas ofwell-documented scientific knowledge, and 3) the Foundation is a non-political entity and does not engage in, or support,political movements. It is important to note that in the past we have given grants to scientists who have gone on to identifythemselves as members of the Intelligent Design community. We understand that this could be misconstrued by some to suggest thatwe implicitly support the Intelligent Design movement, but, as outlined above, this was not our intention at the time nor is ittoday. -- Templeton Foundation[64]
Relations with the scientific community
Relations with the scientific community are broadly very strong. The Foundation counts among its many supporters suchscientific figures such as: Theoretical physicist and cosmologistPaul Davies, professor atArizona State University and founder of Beyond: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science[65]; Biologist BaronessSusan Greenfield,Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain[66];GeneticistFrancis Collins,director of the National Human Genome Research Institute[67]; PaleontologistSimon Conway Morris.
The supportive stance of religious thinkers has led to criticism from some members of the scientific community;Sean M. Carroll acosmologist andatheist from theUniversity of Chicago wrote, indescribing his self-recusal from a conference he discovered was funded by the Foundation, that "the entire purpose of theTempleton Foundation is to blur the line between straightforward science and explicitly religious activity, making it seem likethe two enterprises are part of one big undertaking. It‘s all about appearances." But he also said, "I appreciate that theTempleton Foundation is actually, in its own way, quite pro-science, and is not nearly as objectionable as the anti-scientificcrackpots at the Discovery Institute."[68] In his bookThe God Delusion,Richard Dawkins (anevolutionary biologist) repeatedly criticizes the Templeton Foundation, referringto the Templeton Prize as "a very large sum of money given...usually to a scientist who is prepared to say something nice aboutreligion."