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Paul Davies on ‘What’s Eating the Universe?’
Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and best-selling author is Regents’ Professor of Physics and director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University. His research has explored quantum gravity, black holes, early-universe cosmology, and astrobiology as it relates to the origin of life. In 1995 he became the third physicist to be awarded the Templeton Prize, both for his groundbreaking research and his work engaging philosophers, religious leaders and the public around questions of the universe’s origin and nature. Nate Barksdale, lead writer for the John Templeton Foundation’s “Possibilities” newsletter, recently spoke with Davies…
Q&A: Five Questions with Betül Kaçar
Betül Kaçar is an assistant professor at the University of Arizona in the departments of Cell Biology and Astronomy. Her research investigates molecular mechanisms of evolution, the origins of life, and the distribution of life throughout the universe. Her research team uses a new approach that infers ancient DNA sequences using phylogenetics, engineers these reconstructed DNA inside microbial genomes, and reanimates them in order to study ancient enzymes in modern organisms. Kaçar’s work at the University of Arizona and previously at Harvard University has been supported by multiple grants from the John Templeton Foundation, including the latest $357,843 grant “Molecular…
Strategic Priority Q&A: Science of Virtues
Please note: The information in this article reflects our strategic priorities at the time of writing and may change over time. To confirm our current funding interests, please view our Funding Areas. This conversation is the third in a series of conversations about the Strategic Priorities that the John Templeton Foundation will be funding over the next five years. This interview with Sarah Clement, Senior Director, Character Virtue Development, was conducted and edited by Benjamin Carlson, Director, Strategic Communication. To get started, why don’t you share a little about your story – what brought you to the Foundation? What…
High school debate turns to the Big Questions
Does science leave room for free will? High school debaters have some ideas. More than 9,000 students, coaches, and parents converged in Birmingham, Ala., the last week of June for the National Speech and Debate Association’s national tournament. On Friday afternoon, in one of the tournament’s climactic events, high school students from South Dakota and Missouri faced off in the 1,000-seat BJCC Theatre to debate whether science leaves room for free will. It was a profound enough topic on its own, but the event was also noteworthy as the national championship debut of a new kind of high school debate,…
Q&A: Five Questions with Jason Marsh
Jason Marsh is the executive director of the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) at the University of California, Berkeley, and the founding editor-in-chief of the center’s award-winning online magazine, Greater Good. The GGSC sponsors research into social and emotional well-being and provides resources to help people apply this research to their personal and professional lives. Marsh was recently featured in TIME magazine’s “Apart. Not Alone” series responding to the COVID-19 crisis in a list of “27 People Bridging Divides Across America.” The GGSC has published an online Guide to Well-Being during Coronavirus, including advice about approaches for practicing character virtues…
Into the Unknown: Foundation Reports from the Edge of Physics
Four new scientific reviews tackle the origins of space, time, and the universe—and the mystery of why the cosmos seems ideally suited for human life. What happened before the Big Bang? Is our cosmos precisely tuned to foster life? Is time an illusion? What are the building blocks of reality? On Friday, November 12, science think-tank the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) will publish the first in a new series of reports that unravel these and other perplexing questions. “These reports cover some of humanity’s deepest and oldest questions about where we come from, who we are, the fate of the…
Q&A: Five Questions with Jeffrey Rosen
Journalist and legal commentator Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center (NCC) in Philadelphia and led the development of the John Templeton Foundation-funded Interactive Constitution. Rosen is also a professor at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing writer for The Atlantic. He spoke recently with Nate Barksdale, lead writer for the John Templeton Foundation’s Possibilities newsletter, about how the NCC has responded and adapted to the COVID-19 era, as well as the big questions being raised by the personal and collective challenges of the pandemic. How is the COVID-19 crisis affecting the National Constitution…
WOW, WHY, HOW?
Post by post, Orbiter is building an online archive of wonder as it explores the big questions of the natural and social sciences When describing his mission as managing editor of ORBITER magazine, Mark Moring considers the principal characters in the original Star Trek series. “I think about Spock, who was obviously intensely interested in the science, the technology, and the nuts and bolts of how things worked,” Moring says. “But he never really asked the questions of why things work the way they do. Kirk, on the other hand, was bold to the point of being reckless, sometimes making…
Q&A: Five Questions with Matt Warner
Matt Warner is president of Atlas Network, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization connecting a global network of more than 500 free-market organizations in over 90 countries to the ideas and resources needed to promote individual freedom and to identify and remove barriers to human flourishing. Warner is the project leader for the John Templeton Foundation-funded grant Doing Development Differently, which works with think tanks in dozens of countries to identify and support “locally grown solutions to poverty.” This interview was conducted and edited by Nate Barksdale, lead writer for the John Templeton Foundation’s “Possibilities” newsletter. How did you first get…
EXPANDING “SCIENCE FOR SEMINARIES”
Equipping tomorrow’s clergy to discuss scientific findings and technological advances — and the big questions they raise Today the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the John Templeton Foundation announce a $6.1 million grant to expand their work with the Association of Theological Schools to make more scientific material available to Christian seminary students in their core courses. The major dollar investment is matched by a five-year time commitment — both on the high end of the Foundation’s usual grantmaking practices — because of the strategic success of the project’s first phase, as well as the exciting prospects for its…
