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: 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... John Marks Templeton, renowned stock investor and businessman, was born on 29 November 1912, in the town of Winchester, Tennessee. ...

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.

Each year, the Foundation awards the Templeton Prize to the living individual who best exemplifies "trying various ways for discoveries and breakthroughs to expand human perceptions of divinity and to help in the acceleration of divine creativity." The prize is adjusted to always be slightly higher than the Nobel Prize. The Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities was until 2001 awarded for Progress in Religion. ... The Nobel Prizes (Swedish: ) are awards in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, physiology or medicine. ...

Activities

One of the main activities of the Foundation is the disbursal 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]. 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... John Marks Templeton, renowned stock investor and businessman, was born on 29 November 1912, in the town of Winchester, Tennessee. ... The Passion of the Christ (2004) is an Academy Award nominated film about the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus Christ – from the moment of his arrest, trial to crucifixion – known to Christians as The Passion. Directed by Mel Gibson, it was nominated for three Academy Awards: best...

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]. Paul Charles William Davies (born April 22, 1946) is a British-born, internationally acclaimed physicist, writer and broadcaster, who holds the position of College Professor at Arizona State University. ... Max Tegmark Max Tegmark born 1967 in Sweden to Karin Tegmark and Harold S Shapiro, is a cosmologist formerly at the University of Pennsylvania and now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an Associate Professor. ... John David Barrow FRS (born November 29, 1952, London) is an English cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and mathematician. ... Martin E.P. Seligman (Albany, New York, 12 August 1942) is an American psychologist and writer. ... Laurence Iannaccone (AN-a-CONE-ee) is an economics professor at George Mason University. ... Alexander W. Astin is the Allan M. Cartter Professor of Higher Education Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. ... MediaTransparency is a project which monitors the financial ties of Conservative groups. ... The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) is an international non-profit membership organization dedicated to research, teaching and public service. ...

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". A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Vol. ...

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]. John Marks Templeton, Jr (born 1940) is the elder son of the stock investor, businessman and philanthropist John Templeton and serves as the President of the Templeton Foundation and organizes its day-to-day running. ... Evangelicalism, in a strictly lexical, but rarely used sense, refers to all things that are implied in belief that Jesus is the savior. ... American conservatism is a constellation of political ideologies within the United States under the blanket heading of conservative. ...

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]. Categories: Magazines stubs | Microsoft subsidiaries | Websites | The Washington Post ... American conservatism is a constellation of political ideologies within the United States under the blanket heading of conservative. ... Gertrude Himmelfarb (born August 8, 1922) is an American historian known for her studies of the intellectual history of the Victorian era, particularly of Social Darwinism; and as a conservative cultural critic. ... Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and public intellectual who made major contributions to the fields of macroeconomics, microeconomics, economic history and statistics while advocating laissez-faire capitalism. ... Walter E. Williams (born 1936) is an American economist. ... This article is about the economist Julian Simon. ... Mary R. Lefkowitz (born 1935) and Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, USA. She earned her B.A. from Wellesley College in 1957, and received her Ph. ...

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]. For other uses, see Intelligent design (disambiguation). ... The Discovery Institute is a think tank structured as a non-profit foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. The stated mission of the organization is to make a positive vision of the future practical. ... For other uses, see Guillermo Gonzalez. ...

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. A New York Times article said the foundation asked intelligent design proponents to submit proposals for actual research and quoted Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice 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 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 stated. "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][11] For other uses, see Intelligent design (disambiguation). ... The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist campaign that calls for broad social, academic and political changes derived from the concept of intelligent design. ... Look up Rigour in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

In 2007 in the LA Times Pamela Thompson, Vice President for Communications of the Templeton Foundation wrote "We do not believe that the science underpinning the intelligent-design movement is sound, we do not support research or programs that deny large areas of well-documented scientific knowledge, and the foundation is a nonpolitical entity and does not engage in or support political movements."[1] The same day the Wall Street Journal also included a letter from the same Pamela Thompson making much the same point: "The foundation doesn't support the political movement known as 'Intelligent Design.' This is for three reasons: We don't believe the science underpinning the 'Intelligent Design' movement is sound, we don't support research or programs that deny large areas of well-documented scientific knowledge and the foundatioon is a non-political entity and does not engage in, or suport, political movements." [2]

In February 2007 the Discovery Institute began a campaign to counter the unfavorable statements of Harper and Thompson citing a "report" published on the pro-Intelligent Design wiki, ResearchID.^[12] This campaign quoted clarifications from Charles Harper of the Templeton Foundation denouncing intelligent design and distancing the Templeton Foundation 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 concerted patron and sponsor of the so-called Intelligent Design ("ID") position,"^[13] ResearchID and Discovery Institute claimed that this was indicative of larger errors and bias: "The media has misrepresented the record of the intelligent design research community."^[14] Critics of intelligent design responded by noting that though Harper appears to have "confirmed that while the first statement about a formal call for applications was false, the real point of the article, that ID advocates don't do very well in terms of actual research and scientific review, remains true and valid" a point the Discovery Institute glosses over.^[15] The Templeton Foundation posted a response to the Discovery Institute's campaign, saying: The Discovery Institute is a think tank structured as a non-profit foundation, founded in 1990 and based in Seattle, Washington, USA. The stated mission of the organization is to make a positive vision of the future practical. ... Look up Wiki in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

In response to errors and misrepresentations stated in the February 28, 2007 ResearchID.com blog post: 1. The John Templeton Foundation has never made a call-for-proposals to the ID Community. 2. The Henry Schaefer grant was from the Origins of Biological 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 not support the political movement known as "Intelligent Design." This is for three reasons 1) we do not believe the science underpinning the "Intelligent Design" movement is sound, 2) we do not support research or programs that deny large areas of well-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 identify themselves as members of the Intelligent Design community. We understand that this could be misconstrued by some to suggest that we implicitly support the Intelligent Design movement, but, as outlined above, this was not our intention at the time nor is it today. -- Templeton Foundation^[16]

Relations with the scientific community

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." But he also said, "I appreciate that the Templeton Foundation is actually, in its own way, quite pro-science, and is not nearly as objectionable as the anti-scientific crackpots at the Discovery Institute."^[17] In his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins (an evolutionary biologist) repeatedly criticizes the Templeton Foundation, referring to the Templeton Prize as "a very large sum of money given...usually to a scientist who is prepared to say something nice about religion." Sean M. Carroll is a senior research associate in the Department of Physics at the California Institute of Technology. ... Cosmology is the study of the large-scale structure and history of the universe. ... For information about the band, see Atheist (band). ... The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. ... The God Delusion is a non-fiction book by British ethologist Richard Dawkins, Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. ... Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941) is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. ... Evolutionary biology is a subfield of biology concerned with the origin and descent of species, as well as their change, multiplication, and diversity over time. ...

References

External links

• Templeton Foundation homepage
• Official statement on the false and misleading information published in the Wall Street Journal November 14 John Templeton Foundation
• Foundational Questions Institute