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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…
New Project to Extend the Digital Reach of Classical Liberal Ideas
Game theory, justice, equality, market failure, and public choice will be among the topics explored in a new series of videos and allied content for undergraduates in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) programs at universities worldwide. The curriculum is being produced as part of a two-year project, led by Jonathan Fortier of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University and co-funded with a $217,400 grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The first PPE program was pioneered at Oxford University in the 1920s as an alternative to the university’s classics-heavy standard humanities curriculum. Since then, PPE graduates from have…
Scientists in Synagogues
Inviting Jewish congregations to explore awe, curiosity and wonder through the lens of science In May of 2017 an audience of more than a hundred gathered at Boston’s Congregation B’nai Shalom to hear Google executive Jeremy Wertheimer talk about the ways that artificial intelligence is transforming the human experience. As part of his talk, Wertheimer linked contemporary debates about who bears the blame if a self-driving car causes an injury, with a millenia-old Talmudic discussion of a surprisingly similar circumstance: if someone has an ox that gores a person or another animal, when should it be viewed as an accident…
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…
WATCH: Did Science Invent Optimism?
What role did science play in the emergence of optimism? Join us in conversation with the Columbia University professor and chair of biology, Dr. Stuart Firestein. Author of two trade books on the surprising role of ignorance and failure in science, Dr. Firestein is at work on a new book on optimism, from which he shares a preview in this exclusive discussion with the John Templeton Foundation. His bold argument makes the sweeping claim that it was the emergence of science, and its discovery of technologies that enabled rapid improvement in quality of life, that first allowed people to feel…
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…
John Templeton Foundation Announces New Director of Human Sciences
The John Templeton Foundation is pleased to announce that Nicholas J. S. Gibson, Ph.D. has been appointed to lead the Human Sciences department. With the Foundation since 2011, Dr. Gibson now takes on the role of Director, Human Sciences. In this role, Dr. Gibson will commission and oversee philanthropic initiatives spanning the Foundation’s Human Sciences portfolio, which includes more than $80 million of projects around the world. The Human Sciences department supports basic and applied scientific research on a wide array of topics within the social, behavioral, cognitive, and health sciences, especially as they relate to human nature, human flourishing,…
Quantum biology and the arrow of time
Jellyfish and migratory birds may help physicists understand the mysterious shift from quantum to classical mechanics Time as we experience it only ever appears to move forward, pointing one-way like an arrow. But at the scale of quantum physics, time is reversible: simple quantum processes, such as a particle scattering through a potential, make just as much sense when viewed forward or backwards through time. We do know, however, that many complex processes are irreversible: they cannot simply be reversed by running the clock backwards. How such irreversible processes emerge from smaller reversible building blocks is not fully understood by…
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…
Foundation Welcomes Two New Program Officers
The John Templeton Foundation is excited to announce the arrival of two new Program Officers — Dr. Sarah Lane Ritchie and Dr. Emanuela Sani. Dr. Sarah Lane Ritchie joins the Foundation as the Program Officer in Philosophy & Theology. In this role, she works to develop new funding initiatives and manages the full life-cycle of the grant process. Before coming to the Foundation, Dr. Lane Ritchie was Lecturer in Theology & Science at the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Lane Ritchie received her B.A. in Philosophy & Religion from Spring Arbor University, an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and an M.Sc.…
