Dispute On The Templeton Foundation (incl. Michael Shermer) - Sir Harold Kroto @ The Science Network

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Dispute On The John Templeton Foundation [including Michael Shermer (Skeptic Magazine), Jonathan Haidt (University of Virginia), Sean Carroll (California Institute of Technology)] - Sir Harold Kroto @ The Science Network - Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0

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Sir Harold KROTO, Chairman of the Board of the Vega Science Trust, a UK educational charity that produces science programs for television, in 1996 shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for the discovery of a new form of carbon, the C60 Buckminsterfullerene. He has received the Royal Society's prestigious Michael Faraday Award, given annually to a scientist who has done the most to further public communication of science, engineering or technology in the United Kingdom.

The John TEMPLETON Foundation was established in 1987 by the late investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton; the current president is his son John M. Templeton, Jr. It is usually referred to simply as the Templeton Foundation.

The mission of the Templeton Foundation is to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in areas engaging life's biggest questions. These questions range from explorations into the laws of nature and the universe to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness, and creativity. Our vision is derived from Sir John Templeton's 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.


It funds work in the natural and human sciences, in philosophy and theology, in research into free-market solutions to poverty, and in support of gifted education.

According to the Foundation, it gives away about $60 million a year in research grants and programs.

Grants are made in core funding areas that align with the Foundation's mission statement and charter. Typically, grants are approved in a process that incorporates scientific peer review. The Foundation funds numerous high-level scientific research projects, usually by means of international competitions to which research teams from 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 awarded for research on the origin and evolution of life and anthropology. Other projects included 30 grants for research in the area of physics and 14 grants in the area of cosmology.

In 2008, the Foundation received the National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation
http://www.templeton.org/

As you watch the conversation in Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0, it might help to know about one of the sources that was helpful to me in formulating the agenda, assembling the cast of characters, and setting the tone for the meeting. I quoted this passage from Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century by Jonathan Glover (who directs the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics at King's College, London):

"Now we tend to see the Enlightenment view of human psychology as thin and mechanical, and Enlightenment hopes of social progress through the spread of humanitarianism and the scientific outlook as naïve...One of this book's aims is to replace the thin, mechanical psychology of the Enlightenment with something more complex, something closer to reality...another aim of the book is to defend the Enlightenment hope of a world that is more peaceful and humane, the hope that by understanding more about ourselves we can do something to create a world with less misery. I have qualified optimism that this hope is well founded..."

I say Amen to that. If Enlightenment 1.0 took a thin and mechanical view of human nature and psychology, I think Enlightenment 2.0 can offer a much 'thicker' and cognitively richer account - less naïve and also, perhaps, less hubristic. If there's one thing we've learned - particularly from cognitive neuroscience - it is that we need to have some strategic humility about the hobby horses we are inclined to ride.

Roger Bingham
Director, The Science Network
http://thesciencenetwork.org/

BEYOND BELIEF DVDs are available at:
http://www.beyondbeliefdvd.com/servlet/StoreFront
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[Bueller007]

Your study found that prayer has no effect, and that knowing you're being prayed for can actually be harmful.

If this finding isn't enough to challenge the belief in prayer, why the fuck did you perform the study in the first place?

These Templeton pricks should have had the fucking guts to flat out say it (in the discussion section where the analyse the data, not merely in the results): "Our study suggests that prayer has no effect."

[allinsman]

Why shouldn't scientists be involved in these questions?? Dawkins is a evolutionary biologist and creationists is teaching kids evolution is a myth. This is most certainly something scientists as "authorities" in science should oppose.

[PacalB]

The last speaker nailed it.

[Gnosis2078]

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Albert Einstein, "Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium", 1941

US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

The fundamentalist materialist scientists are out of synch with Einstein. Just saying. Newton, Einstein, Plank, Bohr all held a belief that there was more than meets the eye. I understand it holds little meaning if you have not experienced it, but to experience it, you have to seek it.

[Bueller007]

@Gnosis2078

Please learn the meaning of "need" before you attempt to lecture me on reading ability, you silly twat.

[Gnosis2078]

@Bueller007 What don't you understand about "No reply needed"? An inability to understand such a basic request shows quite clearly who really needs help. I suspect a psychotic need to be right and have the last word permeates the very fabric of your existence, so... yawn... have the last word, make it really profane to demonstrate your macho strength online... I will not reply.

[Bueller007]

@Gnosis2078

I'm "angry" because you're entirely clueless. Templeton found that if you don't know you're being prayed for, it has no effect whatsoever. If you ~DO~ know you're being prayed for then it has a slightly negative effect.

Your comment shows that you are a clueless fucktard.

Take your intentional ignorance elsewhere.

[Gnosis2078]

@Bueller007 What is it inside you that would make you respond like this? While my comments did have a tinge of attitude, your comments reveal an inner anger that cannot be fun or good for you. May real peace one day be yours Bueller. No reply needed. Honestly.

[Bueller007]

@Gnosis2078

You're a fucking cretin.

[Gnosis2078]

@Bueller007 By your own admission there was an effect. People did worse. If the prayer/intention was better designed it would probably have proven the opposite. IMHO.

[Gnosis2078]

Templeton gives money and then has some idiot Nobel prize winner say that he believes in God. Harummph! Why that simply MUST be stopped! Smart people believing in Spirituality? LOL. When will these atheist fundamentalist scientists realize that their viewpoints are not mandatory to being smart? They are as bad as the other end of the spectrum EG. Jimmy Swaggert ET AL. Let people explore. That's how we progress. Templeton should be praised for funding research. Period.