Featured Grant
The Foundational Questions Institute
Established in 2006 under the leadership of Max Tegmark of MIT and Anthony Aguirre of UC-Santa Cruz, the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) seeks to "catalyze, support, and disseminate research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources." This past July, FQXi awarded $2.68 million to support 33 different projects. An expert review panel used a two-step process to choose the winners from 191 applications from 11 different countries.
Among the grantees were Raphael Bousso, a professor at UC-Berkeley, for a project titled "Why Is the Universe Large?" ($60,000); Jonathan Dowling of LSU for work on "Quantum Measurement in the Timeless Universe" ($102,000); and Andrei Linde of Stanford for research on "Multiverse, Inflation, Life, and Probabilities" ($164,000). A. Garrett Lisi, an independent physicist recently profiled in the New Yorker, received a grant for work on what he refers to as his "exceptionally simple theory of everything" ($77,000).
With the support of the John Templeton Foundation, the four-year project has awarded, to date, a total of approximately $5 million in grants in two phases, as well as a number of mini-grants for travel, lecture programs, workshops, and other small projects initiated by FQXi members. Part of the support from JTF has been used to form a network of scientists interested in addressing the most difficult questions about the ultimate nature of the universe. In 2006, the group met in Iceland, and there is another conference planned for the summer of 2009. To continue to identify new areas for research and more potential researchers, FQXi has also just launched a $50,000 essay contest. The Institute will award as many as 21 prizes of up to $10,000 for original work discussing "The Nature of Time."
For more about FQXi, see the October 1, 2008 issue of the Templeton Report.
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Core Themes
In keeping with Sir John Templeton's intent, his Foundation serves as a philanthropic catalyst for research and discoveries relating to what scientists and philosophers call the Big Questions. We support work at the world's top universities in such fields as theoretical physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and social science relating to love, forgiveness, creativity, purpose, and the nature and origin of religious belief. We also seek to stimulate new thinking about wealth creation in the developing world, character education in schools and universities, and programs for cultivating the talents of gifted children. Learn more about the Foundation's "Core Themes."
Funding Areas
Click on the funding areas below for an overview and a sampling of grant profiles.
Featured Book
David G. Myers is the author of the most widely used psychology textbook on college campuses today, soon to be in its 9th edition, and he devotes a good deal of his time to keeping it up to date. But Myers, a trustee of the John Templeton Foundation and a professor of social psychology at Hope College in Michigan, also has a vocation—getting people on different sides of difficult issues to talk to each other.
In his new book, A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists: Musings on Why God Is Good and Faith Isn't Evil, Myers does not try to convince skeptics to accept the "truth claims" of religion, but he does draw their attention to its social benefits. Studies show that, compared with their secular counterparts, religious people tend to be happier and healthier and to contribute more to helping others through volunteer work and charitable giving. Nor, he insists, is religion the enemy of science. "Believers can share with skeptics a commitment to reason, evidence, and critical thinking," he writes, "while also embracing a faith that supports happiness, health, and helpfulness."
This middle ground, Myers recently argued in "On Faith," the religion blog of the Washington Post, is precisely what today's "new atheists" refuse to accept, a point he also emphasized in his response to Religulous, the new movie by Bill Maher. Publishers Weekly, among other reviewers, has singled out his new book's calm reasonableness as a particular strength: "Myers adds to the numerous apologetic texts that have emerged since the neo-atheist movement began. But this quick jaunt into potentially dangerous waters is head and shoulders above the rest."
