Templeton

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NO MERRI

DENIER PERC ENTINE

IHS FUNDER THUS KOCHADEMIA, ASPEN CATO FEE LIBTARD MERCATUS

WELLSPRING

CLAREMONSTERS

LIGGIO?

FRASER

ANN CORKEY = LEO?

see investment // hedge fund franklin templeton

ucsc invites grants hillsdale, fraser inst...mercatus (but also yale oxfd...)

birth control?

https://www.templeton.org/funding-areas/voluntary-family-planning

Caroline M. Rodriguez Associate Director Tel: 831-459-4903 Email: caroline@ucsc.edu.

UCSC Contact:caroline@ucsc.edu

Funder: John Templeton Foundation

Opportunity: Large and Small Grants

Large Grant: more than $234,800 (USD)

Small Grants:less than $234,800 (USD)

Deadline for Large and Small Online Funding Inquiry (OFI): August 20, 2021

Overview

Accelerating Discovery, Inspiring Curiosity.

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? Is evolution directional? Are we immortal? Was the universe created? What is love? We share Sir John Templeton’s optimism about the power of the sciences and other discovery-oriented disciplines to advance our understanding of the Big Questions.

Funding Areas

Science and the Big Question

Character Virtue Development

Individual Freedom and Free Markets

Exceptional Cognitive Talent/Genius

Genetics https://www.templeton.org/funding-areas/genetics feature non GMO basic res on webpage?

Volunteer Family Planning

https://www.templeton.org/grants/grant-database

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Templeton was an evangelical Christian and an elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.^[4] The Templeton Honors College at Eastern University is named in his honor. He was a substantial contributor to conservative causes. In 2008, he donated $450,000 to the National Organization for Marriage, and his wife, Josephine, contributed $100,000.^[5] In 2009, he donated $300,000, again to the National Organization For Marriage.^[6] In a Philadelphia Inquirer article it was asserted that the Templetons had, between John and his wife, Josephine, donated $1 million to parties opposing same-sex marriage.^[3]

In 2010, Politics Magazine had named Templeton as one of the most influential Republicans in Pennsylvania.^[7]

Templeton died on May 16, 2015, from brain cancer in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Survivors include his wife, Josephine (Pina) Gargiulo Templeton, whom he married in 1970; two daughters, Heather Dill and Jennifer Simpson; a brother; and six grandchildren.^[8][4]

wiki 621

Science education

The foundation has provided grants in support of dialogue with scientists in synagogues,^[27] and a grant for advancing scientific literacy in madrasas.^[28][29][30]

History

The foundation provided funding for the book Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, which was edited by historian of science Ronald Numbers.^[59]

Reception

The foundation has received both praise and criticism for its awards. The French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) has been critical of the foundation for funding "initiatives to bring science and religion closer together."^[60] Science journalist Chris Mooney, an atheist and author of The Republican War on Science, received a 2010 Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship, enabling him to join other journalists for a three-week lecture program on science and religion at Cambridge University. In a 2010 article on his Discover magazine blog, Mooney wrote, "I can honestly say that I have found the lectures and presentations that we've heard here to be serious and stimulating. The same goes for the discussions that have followed them".^[61] Some scholars have expressed concerns about the nature of the awards, research projects, and publications backed by the foundation.^{[62][63][64][65][66][67]}

Religious funding

:{Critics have asserted that the foundation has supported Christian-oriented research in the field of the scientific study of religions,^[68] although the foundation has awarded both the Templeton Prize and numerous grants to persons of widely varied religious backgrounds, having provided extensive funding of Islamic scholarship, Buddhist research, and Jewish public engagement. Wired magazine has noted that "the scientists who apply to the foundation for support, though, are not required to state their religious beliefs, or to have any".^[69] In 2006, John Horgan, a 2005 Templeton-Cambridge fellow then working as a freelance science journalist, wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education that he had enjoyed his fellowship, but felt guilty that by taking money from the foundation, he had contributed to the mingling of science with religion.^[70]

Horgan stated "misgivings about the foundation's agenda of reconciling religion and science". He said that a conference he attended favored scientists who "offered a perspective clearly skewed in favor of religion and Christianity."^[71] Horgan fears recipients of large grants from the foundation sometimes write what the foundation wants rather than what they believe.^[71] Richard Dawkins, in his 2006 book The God Delusion, interprets Horgan as saying that "Templeton's money corrupts science", and characterizes the prize as going "usually to a scientist who is prepared to say something nice about religion".^[72] Donald Wiebe, scholar of religious studies at the University of Toronto, similarly criticized the foundation in a 2009 article entitled Religious Biases in Funding Religious Studies Research?. According to him, the foundation supports Christian bias in the field of religious studies, by deliberately imposing constraints to steer the results of the research.^[68]}:

:{Paul Davies, physicist and 1995 Templeton Prize laureate, gave a defense of the foundation's role in the scientific community in the Times Higher Education Supplement in March 2005.^[73] In 2010, journalist Nathan Schneider published a lengthy investigative article about the foundation, entitled God, Science and Philanthropy, in The Nation. In the article, he aired complaints about the foundation, but observed that many of its critics and grantees alike failed to appreciate "the breadth of the foundation's activities, much less the quixotic vision of its founder, John Templeton". Schneider observed: "At worst, Templeton could be called heterodox and naïve; at best, his was a mind more open than most, reflective of the most inventive and combinatorial strains of American religious thought, eager to radically reinterpret ancient wisdom and bring it up to speed with some version from the present."^[74]

Though the foundation, in Schneider's view, "has associated itself with political and religious forces that cause it to be perceived as threatening the integrity of science and protecting the religious status quo," these alliances meant the foundation "is also better positioned than most to foster a conservatism—and a culture generally—that holds the old habits of religions and business responsible to good evidence, while helping scientists better speak to people's deepest concerns".^[74] In 2011, the science journal Nature took note of the ongoing controversy among scientists over working with Templeton.^[3] Jerry Coyne, University of Chicago evolutionary biologist, sees a fundamental impossibility in attempting to reconcile faith with science.^[75] Coyne told Nature writer Mitchell Waldrop that the foundation's purpose is to eliminate the wall between religion and science, and to use science's prestige to validate religion. Other scientists, including Foundation grantees like University of Chicago psychologist John Cacioppo and Anthony Aguirre, a University of California—Santa Cruz astrophysicist, told Nature that they have never felt pressured by Templeton to spin their research toward religion-friendly conclusions.^[3]}:

Sunny Bains of University College London Faculty of Engineering Science claimed that there is "evidence of cronyism (especially in the awarding in those million-dollar-plus Templeton prizes), a misleading attempt to move away from using religious language (without changing the religious agenda), [and] the funding of right-wing anti-science groups".^[76] Bains feels that grants from the foundation "blur the line between science and religion". Bains' claims have been disputed by Josh Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education, who wrote that "the story [Bains] wrote is not convincing", stating that "[k]ey assertions are couched in equivocal language that relies on her judgment or her assumptions, not on any evidence offered to the reader", and that "[o]bvious opportunities for detailed investigation – financial records, grantmaking decisions, interviews with Templeton staff, interviews with grantees, examination of correspondence between grantees and Templeton – are entirely absent".^[77]

Intelligent design

A 2007 article in the Los Angeles Times described the foundation as having "drawn criticism for its early support of intelligent design",^[78] but by the 2010s, Charles L. Harper Jr., a former senior vice president of the foundation, told BusinessWeek that the foundation had become one of the "principal critics" of the intelligent design movement and funded projects that challenged that movement.^[79] Harper Jr. told The New York Times: "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".^[80]

Some organizations funded by the foundation in the 1990s gave book-writing grants to Guillermo Gonzalez and to William Dembski, proponents of intelligent design who later joined the Discovery Institute.^[3][81] The foundation also gave money directly to the Discovery Institute which in turn passed it through to Baylor University, which used the funds to support Dembski's salary at its short-lived Michael Polanyi Center.^[82]:306[83] The foundation funded projects by Bruce L. Gordon, associate director of the center, after the center was dissolved.^[84] Some media outlets described the foundation as a supporter of intelligent design during the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District litigation in the mid-2000s, a charge which the foundation denied.^[3] The foundation "explicitly warns intelligent-design researchers not to bother submitting proposals: they will not be considered."^[3][80]

In March 2009, the Discovery Institute accused the foundation of blocking its involvement in Biological Evolution: Facts and Theories, a Vatican-backed, Templeton-funded conference in Rome. On the lack of involvement of any speakers supporting intelligent design, the conference director Rev. Marc Leclerc said, "We think that it's not a scientific perspective, nor a theological or philosophical one ... This makes a dialogue difficult, maybe impossible".^[85] In 2011, The Times stated that the Templeton Prize is "explicitly critical of such pseudoscientific gibberish as intelligent design".^[86]

Conservatism

A number of journalists have highlighted connections with conservative causes. A 1997 article in Slate said the foundation had given a significant amount of 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 called John Templeton Jr. a "sugar daddy" for such thinkers.^[87] The foundation also has a history of supporting the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, as well as projects at major research centers and universities such as Hernando de Soto's Instituto Libertad Y Democracia and the X Prize Foundation, which is described as "a nonprofit organization that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit humanity".

In a 2007 article in The Nation, Barbara Ehrenreich drew attention to the foundation's former president John M. Templeton Jr. funding of the conservative group Freedom's Watch, and referred to the foundation as a "right wing venture".^[88] Pamela Thompson, former Vice President of Communications of the foundation, replied that "the Foundation is, and always has been, run in accordance with the wishes of Sir John Templeton Sr, who laid very strict criteria for its mission and approach", that it is "a non-political entity with no religious bias" and it "is totally independent of any other organisation and therefore neither endorses, nor contributes to political candidates, campaigns, or movements of any kind".^[89] Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle listed the foundation as among the largest financial contributors to the climate change denial movement between 2003 and 2010.^[90]

Templeton Press

The foundation also funds an affiliated publisher, Templeton Press,^[91] which from 2004 to 2010 published the periodical In Character: A Journal of Everyday Virtues.^[92] From 2000 to 2003 it published Research news & opportunities in science and theology,^[93] in which Bruce L. Gordon published a piece on the state of "design theory" in the aftermath of the Michael Polanyi Center affair.^[82]:378[94] Templeton Press has a partnership with the Yale University Press, producing books on character and on Foundational Questions in Science.^[95]

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The influx of money for philosophy research from the religiously inclined Templeton Foundation has raised some eyebrows in the discipline.

By

Libby A. Nelson

May 21, 2013

Unlike many of their colleagues in the sciences, philosophy faculty and researchers can go an entire year, or multiple years, without receiving a grant. A six-figure grant that would be unremarkable for a medical researcher could transform a philosopher’s entire career.

In recent years, though, a lot more of that life-changing money has flowed into the discipline as the John Templeton Foundation -- and its $2.5 billion endowment -- began making philosophy grants. The foundation is dedicated to exploring, as it puts it, “the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality,” and its earlier grant-making efforts in science had drawn criticism from some scientists. Now they’re raising the same discussions among philosophers.

The Templeton Foundation’s grants are intended to fund the study of the intersection of theological and scientific questions. Grants for medical research have looked at the power of prayer on health and the neurobiological foundations of generosity and compassion; in physics, the foundation sponsors the Foundational Questions Institute, which looks at big issues in theoretical physics -- “why is the universe large?” and “hidden variables in the early universe” among them.

Scientists have often criticized the foundation’s grants for attempting to interject religion into the sciences. The foundation holds religion in higher esteem than many of the researchers it funds; it also sponsors the annual Templeton Prize, given each year to a person who has made “an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.”

Now the same debates are spilling over into philosophy. As it does in the sciences, the foundation funds grants surrounding the “big questions,” nearly all of which could be viewed from a spiritual or theological point of view: research into free will and the philosophy of religion among them.

Within the discipline, discussion about the foundation’s purpose and role, and how the influx of millions of dollars of grant money from a single funder could change philosophy research in the future, has churned quietly for several years, occasionally spilling over into the public sphere.

The question is less whether Templeton is giving grants only to researchers who will reach a religion-friendly conclusion; several philosophers involved in the debate said it’s pretty clear that the foundation is not attaching ideological strings to the mission. Instead, they have a broader concern: how the influx of money from one donor, with a specific worldview, could transform the discipline in the future.

That debate emerged again recently, when Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Rutgers, posted what he thought was a casual Facebook status update: “We may expect a huge number of papers and books in our field taking a religious perspective at the very least extremely seriously,” Stanley wrote. “This is not why I entered philosophy, and it is incompatible with my conception of its role in the university. I will not take any money from Templeton or speak at any Templeton funded conferences. Reasonable people may disagree, but I hope there are others who join me in so doing.”

The comment -- which Stanley said he meant as a personal statement, not as a call for a discipline-wide boycott -- was reposted on the blog of Brian Leiter, a philosophy professor at theUniversity of Chicago, and reopened a vigorous debate about the influence Templeton has, for good or ill.

Stanley said he wasn’t as concerned about Templeton’s worldview as about the influence of big money for “big questions.” Templeton’s grants clearly favor research on free will, consciousness, dualism and other philosophical questions with theological overlap. But the fact that those topics are the only ones receiving grants in the tens or hundreds of thousands is concerning, Stanley said, and it would be a matter for concern no matter who was funding them.

“We know from social science that people tend to respond to the agendas of their funders in unconscious ways,” Stanley said.

Many philosophers have received the grants, and many more disagree over what influence -- if any -- the foundation has had on the discipline. Leiter’s repost of Stanley’s Facebook status has drawn more than 100 comments.

“I think Templeton money is affecting the constant judgments we all inevitably make about what is worth attending to and what we don't take seriously,” wrote Peter Godfrey-Smith, a professor of philosophy at the City University of New York, in agreement with Stanley’s concerns. “The side of any issue that intersects with religious ideas is better funded than the side that does not “

Stanley said he’s concerned less about established philosophers than about younger people entering the profession, who might feel pressured to research Templeton-funded areas and reach conclusions amenable to the donors.

But many others pushed back against the contention that Templeton funding could have a corrosive effect on the discipline -- either arguing that more consideration of religious viewpoints might have a positive effect, or that there’s no evidence that Templeton has tried to influence its grantees to adopt its worldview. They also said that many Templeton-funded projects lack any specific religious components, and when they do -- such as a grant to study the foundations of free will -- the theological components were only a portion of the full grant.

“It would seem to me to be a positive good for an institution to give aid and comfort to those who might find themselves in the minority in their discipline and who may even have their metaphysical views compared to astrology,” wrote Gordon Knight, a lecturer in philosophy at Iowa State University. “But theist philosophers are not a minority of one, they are about 20% of the profession. Its hard to see how helping this minority position can do anything other than broaden the range of discourse.”

The draw of a Templeton grant is clear. Stanley, who is senior and well-respected in the discipline, has applied for Guggenheim Fellowships, one of the few other grant programs available to philosophers. In 20 years, he hasn’t won one -- and that’s the norm, not the exception. The National Science Foundation sometimes funds work in theoretical physics, but even the Guggenheim and NSF funds pale in comparison to the Templeton grants, he said.

Projects in theoretical physics funded by the foundation have been “very good,” said Tim Maudlin, a professor of philosophy at New York University, and the foundation’s money has enriched the discipline as a whole. “It’s been very good for the field to have some funding source that’s willing to support people working in” theoretical physics, Maudlin said. “It’s been tough for them. The projects they’ve funded have allowed people to do what they wanted to do.”

Certainly, Maudlin said, he’d like to see many foundations -- not just one -- paying for research in philosophy and theoretical physics. “I wish they were,” he said. “But they’re not, and you deal with reality.”

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PREZ

timothydalrymple

Experience

[President and CEO John Templeton Foundation · Full-time

Jul 2025 - Present · 1 yr

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States · On-site](https://www.linkedin.com/company/32862/)

[President and CEO Christianity Today

May 2019 - Jul 2025 · 6 yrs 3 mos

Wheaton, Illinois](https://www.linkedin.com/company/23229/)

[Founder and CEO Polymath Innovations

Jan 2013 - May 2019 · 6 yrs 5 mos

Peachtree Corners, Georgia](https://www.linkedin.com/company/5324510/)

Patheos.com 5 yrs 4 mos

[Teaching Fellow / Teaching Assistant Harvard University

Jan 2003 - May 2010 · 7 yrs 5 mos

Cambridge, Massachusetts](https://www.linkedin.com/school/1646/)

Education

[Harvard University Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Study of Religion

2002 – 2009](https://www.linkedin.com/school/1646/)

[Princeton Theological Seminary Master of Divinity (M.Div.), Modern Western Religious Thought

1999 – 2002](https://www.linkedin.com/school/70606/)

Activities and societies: Won several fellowships and writing prizes, held the Presidential Fellowship for three years, and won the Senior Thesis Prize for the best thesis in theology.

[Stanford University Bachelor's Degree, Philosophy, Religious Studies

1994 – 1998](https://www.linkedin.com/school/1792/)

Grade: With Distinction

li heather-templeton-dill

Heather Templeton Dill, the former president of the John Templeton Foundation, is married to Dr. Jeffrey Dill. He is an Affiliate Professor of Sociology and Liberal Studies at the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University. [1, 2]

Dr. Dill’s background and professional details include:

Academic Focus: His research and writing explore pluralism in educational systems, moral and citizenship education, and socialization in schools.
Publications: He is the author of The Longing and Limits of Global Citizenship Education.
Family: Together, Heather and Jeffrey Dill have four sons. [1]

Healthy Timing & Spacing of Pregnancy Challenge: Faith ...

https://www.templeton.org › grant › healthy-timing-spa...

John Templeton Foundation Logo ... Faith Leaders and community support women to use family planning for healthier mothers and children ... High fertility, inadequate knowledge of Healthy Timing & Spacing of Pregnancies (HTSP), & how to ...

Missing: abortion ‎| Must include: abortion

Some philosophy scholars raise concerns about Templeton ...

https://www.insidehighered.com › news › 2013/05/21

May 21, 2013 — The influx of money for philosophy research from the religiously inclined Templeton Foundation has raised some eyebrows in the discipline.

Missing: birth ‎control

When Religious Rules And Women's Health Collide | Kaiser ...

https://khn.org › news › when-religious-rules-and-wom...

May 8, 2012 — ... of Health, the Greenwall Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Restrictions on abortion at Catholic hospitals are the rule. ... that the most frequent issues arise around birth control and sterilization, particularly for ...

John Templeton Foundation - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › John_Templeton_Fou...

The John Templeton Foundation (Templeton Foundation) is a philanthropic organization that reflects the ideas of its founder, John Templeton, who became ...

Missing: birth ‎| Must include: birth

New program will study the role of religion in practicing medicine

https://www.uchicagomedicine.org › forefront › news

Apr 1, 2012 — With a $2.6 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the ... clinical issues such as end-of-life care, abortion, and birth control. "The big ...

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JULY 7, 2020 | FOUNDATION NEWS | ALL FUNDING AREAS

WELCOME TO OUR NEW TRUSTEES

The John Templeton Foundation is pleased to announce the appointment of two new members to its Board of Trustees, Dr. Kim Tan and Ms. Lauren Templeton.

The new trustees were confirmed by a vote of the Foundation’s members at its annual meeting, held virtually on June 26-28, 2020. Their terms are effective as of July 1, 2020.

They join the other serving members of the 12-person Board of Trustees that governs the Foundation. The Trustees are guided by the charter and bylaws written by Sir John Templeton.

Dr. Tan is the Chairman of Springhill Management (UK), a fund management company specializing in biotech and social impact investments. He is a partner of a number of social impact funds including Novastar Ventures (Kenya), Inqo Investments (South Africa), and Garden Impact (Singapore). He is the co-founder of the Transformational Business Network and the inventor of sheep monoclonal antibodies. He serves on the advisory boards of J&J Social Ventures and the Centre for Enterprise Markets & Ethics. He is a Pro-Chancellor of the University of Surrey and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Dr. Tan attended several Lyford Cay summits with Sir John Templeton, including the 2004 Lyford Cay Summit on Innovation in Philanthropy and the 2005 Lyford Cay Summit on Entrepreneurial Philanthropy and Enterprise-Based Solutions to Poverty. In addition, he participated in the 2008 Lyford Cay Summit on Free Enterprise, Innovation, and Entrepreneurial Wealth Creation in Africa. He is a Member of the John Templeton Foundation and Templeton World Charity Foundation, and a Steering Committee member of the Templeton Religion Trust.

Ms. Templeton is the founder and President of Templeton & Phillips Capital Management, LLC, a global investing boutique located in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She is also an independent director and member of the Audit Committee of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, a financial holding company engaged in property and casualty insurance and reinsurance. She is an independent director of Fairfax India Holdings Corporation, a publicly traded subsidiary of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited. Ms. Templeton is an independent director of Canadian Solar, one of the world’s largest and foremost solar power companies. It is a leading manufacturer of solar photovoltaic modules and provider of solar energy solutions and has a geographically diversified pipeline of utility-scale power projects in various stages of development.

Ms. Templeton also serves on a number of non-profit organizations. She serves on the Board of Trustees at the Baylor School, the Board of Trustees at the Bright School, and the Board of Overseers at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.Ms. Templeton is the former President of the Southeastern Hedge Fund Association, based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is also the co-author of Investing the Templeton Way: The Market Beating Strategies of Value Investing’s Legendary Bargain Hunter, which has been translated into nine languages. Ms. Templeton holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from the University of the South, Sewanee.

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The Templetons: John “Jack” Templeton Jr. and his wife, Josephine, of Pennsylvania, gave $50,000 apiece to Wisconsin Justice Prosser’s recount effort this year. Jack, an evangelical Christian, has donated more than $1 million to Republicans, according to state and federal records. He heads the John Templeton Foundation, an organization whose critics—including prominent scientists—say it aims to apply scientific legitimacy to matters of faith. The foundation was started by Jack’s late father, Sir John the mutual fund billionaire, and in 2009 reportedly had $1.7 billion in assets.

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https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_horgan-the-templeton-foundation-a-skeptics-take

...A devout Presbyterian born and raised in Tennessee, John M. Templeton launched the extremely successful Templeton mutual funds in the 1950s and became a billionaire. He started spending serious money to promote his religious values in 1972, when he established the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities. The prize, which Templeton stipulated should exceed the Nobel Prize in monetary value, now totals almost $1.5-million and is awarded in Buckingham Palace. Previous winners include Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Charles W. Colson, the born-again Watergate convict. Over the past 20 years, most of the winners have been scientists who see inklings of the divine in nature, including Paul Davies, Freeman J. Dyson, John C. Polkinghorne, and Charles Hard Townes. This year's winner, John D. Barrow, a cosmologist at the University of Cambridge, continues in that vein.

Knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1987, Templeton established the Templeton Foundation that same year to support a broad range of activities aimed at finding common ground between science and religion. So far the foundation has spent more than $250-million on prizes, academic programs, publications, broadcasts, lectures, conferences, and research on topics such as the neurobiology and genetics of religious belief; the evolutionary origins of altruism; and the medical benefits of prayer, church attendance, and forgiveness.

Sir John recently added $550-million to the foundation, boosting its endowment to $1.1-billion. Foundation officials plan to double their annual outlays, which now total $60-million for more than 300 projects.

By all accounts, Sir John is a charming, open-minded man, who emphasizes the importance of humility in all spheres of life. But at 93, he has yielded the day-to-day leadership of the foundation to his son John Jr., a pediatric surgeon who quit his practice in 1995 to become the organization's president. An evangelical Christian, "Jack" is the chairman of Let Freedom Ring Inc., which raises funds for conservative causes. He has reportedly contributed to both presidential campaigns of George Bush, whose relations with the scientific community are arguably the worst of any president in history.

Nevertheless the nation's leading scientific organization — the American Association for the Advancement of Science — and scores of research universities are Templeton Foundation beneficiaries. Largely as a result of Templeton grants, some 90 American medical schools now offer courses on links between health and spirituality. Templeton funds have even trickled down to atheists like the physicist Steven Weinberg, who once proclaimed during a AAAS conference sponsored by the foundation in 1999, "I am all in favor of a dialogue between science and religion, but not a constructive dialogue."

Weinberg has not held his tongue as a result of pocketing Templeton cash, but other recipients have. In March 2003, I attended a Templeton-sponsored conference at Stanford University titled "Becoming Human: Brain, Mind, and Emergence" (my expenses were paid not by the foundation but by a magazine). The meeting was supposed to be a dialogue between neuroscientists, such as V.S. Ramachandran, Robert M. Sapolsky,and Antonio R. Damasio, and religious figures, including the theologian Nancey Murphy and the Australian archbishop George Pell. But the dialogue was nominal; each side listened politely to the other's presentations without really commenting on them. Several areligious scientists told me privately that they did not want to challenge the beliefs of religious speakers for fear of offending them and the Templeton hosts.

At least one scientist has publicly refused to accept money from the foundation. Sean M. Carroll, a physicist at the University of Chicago, declined an invitation to speak at a Templeton-sponsored conference held last fall, which featured 16 Nobel laureates and was endorsed by the American Physical Society. Carroll explained in his blog 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." An atheist, Carroll did not want his name to be "implicitly associated with an effort I find to be woefully misguided." Yet Carroll admitted that he had been tempted by the foundation's offer of a $2,000 honorarium.

...

https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2015/1/6/what-makes-templeton-tick-and-just-how-scary-is-this-place-a.html

What Makes Templeton Tick? And Just How Scary Is This Place? An Inside Look

Tate Williams

The Templeton Foundation’s broad mission, plus its sizable funding of science alongside topics like theology and free enterprise, tend to leave people either excited, furious, or just scratching their heads. We talked with a longtime leader at the foundation to better understand just what makes this unusual funder tick.

There’s really no other funder out there quite like the John Templeton Foundation. While it’s widely known as a science research funder, the foundation doesn’t quite think of itself that way, and its wide spread of interests are driven by what it calls the “Big Questions” of human purpose and reality. So while it gives to basic research in physics, mathematics, psychology, and genetics, to name a few interests, it’s gained notoriety for funding study of religion, encouraging dialogue between faith and science, and some plainly far-out concepts like research of unconditional love.

Related: Templeton Foundation: Grants for Science Research

It’s also no slouch in the funding world, with assets in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion. And while the foundation has become influential in the fields it supports, it has also been the source of a lot of controversy over the years, with some scientists vocally opposing it and others quietly steering clear. Opponents’ arguments can be compelling, and raise some difficult questions about science philanthropy.

But learning more about Templeton’s funding, and talking to Barnaby Marsh, executive vice president of strategic initiatives and management at the foundation, you realize that it’s actually harder than you might think to frame the foundation within a particular ideology, much less an agenda.

“It’s really difficult actually—I’m in the middle right now of helping a team redesign our current web page—to try and explain what this foundation does. There’s gifted education work, it does character work, it does genetics work, it does hard sciences work like mathematics and physical sciences, and social science work,” says Marsh, who has worked at Templeton for 13 years.

“It feels like, well, that sort of sounds like anything. You just fund anything. No actually, we don’t fund anything.”

The thrust of the foundation comes from the philosophy of its founder, John Templeton, who made his fortune as an investor. He had a strong admiration for science and progress, and was also a devoted Christian. But he was no fundamentalist. He disliked dogmatic acceptance, and thought all belief should be tempered with humility and critical thought. Templeton was especially interested in how science might expand on our knowledge of concepts that haven’t historically lent themselves to scientific examination—topics like wisdom, free will, decision-making, and forgiveness.

The hallmarks of the foundation’s giving, according to Marsh, are projects with a sense of curiosity and imagination, that push beyond the comfort level of a researcher or a field of study.

“What we want to do is kind of focus on some of these questions that are not really popular, that could be really risky, but make sure we do it with the best talent possible,” he says.

To ensure rigor, proposals go through a review by foundation staff, but also by outside experts in the applicant’s field. The goal is to fund ideas that are risky, but from researchers who are safe bets, which can be a tough balance.

But the approach has resulted in some pretty fascinating stuff. One of its signature projects was seeding the Foundational Questions Institute in 2005, which makes grants that support work on the origins of the universe and otherfundamental work in physics, led by MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark.

Alfred R. Mele, philosophy professor at Florida State University, has received two grants of around $4.5 million for study of free will and self-control. A recent $4.9 million grant will support Arizona State’s Institute of Human Origins. And smaller project grants include 2013 support to evolutionary biologists at the University of Arizona studying origins of new genes and diversity of life, for example.

So where does the uneasiness around Templeton’s science funding come from? It's a lengthy debate that I'll briefly synopsize here. But Nature did an even-tempered analysis in 2011. And to read some of the strongest criticism, University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne has blogged eloquently on the subject.

Opposition basically boils down to a few concerns: First, there’s the idea that Templeton has a conservative agenda. The foundation has a program on free enterprise, and has funded think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Mercatus Center. This perception has been heightened by the fact that John Templeton’s son Jack Templeton, now president and chair of the foundation, personally supports conservative political causes.

Then there’s the idea that the foundation is using its work in science to bolster a religious perspective, basically trying to add an air of scientific credibility to religion.

Finally, there’s a principled argument against the foundation’s notion that science and religion can coexist comfortably. Detractors say the principles of each are just fundamentally at odds, with religion undermining the virtues of science.

This was perhaps best summed up by physicist Sean Carroll, in a blog post he wrote entitled “Science and Religion Can’t Be Reconciled.” Carroll puts it best himself, but he argues against Templeton’s notion that science and religion should be rubbing shoulders, or the idea that they are “just different paths to the same ultimate truth.”

Barnaby Marsh says the foundation is well aware of such criticisms, and has seen strong distrust over the years, especially in the early days before it had established more of a track record. But the foundation is not averse to criticism, especially from an atheist perspective.

“As far as I’m concerned that’s great. That’s a perspective in the discussion. It’s good to be critical, and you really see that when they try to take something apart, they do it very carefully.”

One thing that would probably surprise people about Templeton is that its grants are much more diverse and much less ideological than you might expect. In fact, the foundation uses “spiritual” almost as a blanket term for concepts that are nebulous or outside of existing scientific understanding.

Part of this diversity of interests has to do with the sheer size of the foundation and number of programs it runs. Other than its very broad mission, there’s no real control mechanism to ensure individual programs are following a central objective, Marsh says. A lot of ideas are on the table, in terms of what they are willing to take a risk on, and the foundation has no issue with funding researchers who disagree with other grants or John Templeton’s ideas.

“It doesn’t really bother anybody in the foundation. That’s the whole idea. If we don’t have people who are critical, ideas are not going to advance. Ideas advance when they get attacked and when attention is drawn to them.”

If anything, Marsh says they've seen the worst resistance from religious fundamentalists, who mistake them for a Christian funder, or want them to support more orthodox ideas.

“That’s very difficult to engage with those sorts of people. Because they’ve sort of decided what they’re going to decide. They believe what they’re going to believe. And it’s very hard to advance and to learn anything new if you’ve already decided what your conclusions are.”

Doesn’t really sound like a religious funder, right?

Which is not to say that there are no valid arguments against the Templeton Foundation. It’s a polarizing debate in the scientific community, but one with very astute people on either side.

For example, the funding of right-wing groups is a real thing. John Templeton, like a lot of wealthy people, was a devotee of the free market, and interested in advancing laissez-faire ideas. The foundation has made regular grants to outfits with an anti-government message that progressives will find repellent.

The foundation’s support of an interface between faith and science that Carroll wrote about is also totally real. The staff believe there’s a place for science in the world of people who are religious, and one of its major initiatives is a program with the AAAS that funds seminaries to teach future religious leaders science. There are researchers who oppose such programs.

All of this gets to a very Big Question in philanthropy: Is it a good idea to accept funds from an entity that believes or supports things to which you are ideologically opposed?

And this is especially important in science as government funding is threatened, and more research is supported by wealthy individuals or their proxies.

Even though researchers report positive experiences with the foundation, it may still have an outlook on science or fund ideas with which researchers wouldn’t want to be associated. And that’s fair.

But Templeton clearly doesn't have a problem with doing things that are unpopular.

“Our key is trying to reach people who have that question that they always wanted to work on, but they could never get funding for it because it just didn’t fit squarely into what was hot in the field at that time," Marsh says. "We really want those people to hear about the foundation and to know that that’s not a barrier for this foundation. Just because it’s not popular, it’s not a barrier.”

Why Templeton Wants to See Science in Seminaries

A Fascinating Meeting of the Minds, On Templeton's Dime

Templeton Couldn’t Resist Granting $4.5M to Study Self-Control

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/21/some-philosophy-scholars-raise-concerns-about-templeton-funding

...

“Family Research Council, the pro-life group, is working with Colin Hanna, and Let Freedom Ring, another Tea Party group. It’s all very much a conglomerate… coming together,” Brody continued.

Business Week describes Let Freedom Ringas “an advocacy organization active with ads targeting Obama in 2008 and whose founder is evangelical Christian John Templeton, and Washington-based Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, which is affiliated with Republican political strategist Karl Rove, are also airing commercials critical of the president’s energy policy.”

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Templeton → bahamas to save $100m/yr taxes 205

fire:

thor h He emerged after college as the executive director of a newfangled right-wing group called FIRE, or the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, defending evangelical students against charges of anti-gay discrimination and combating hate crimes legislation.

FIRE has been funded by two right-wing foundations that also support Halvorssen’s human rights mini-empire: the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation,an evangelical outfit directed by John Templeton Jr., a veteran right-wing activist who has donated more than $1 million to ban same-sex marriage in California. In 2009, HRF noted that the Oslo Freedom Forum “was made possible in large part thanks to a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.”

John Templeton Foundation[tax dodge?]

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donor trust 14%

scaife 7%, bradley 5 plus 1% ed, koch 5, howard charatible fdn 4, john w pope 4, searle 4, templeton 4%, dunn's fdn for the adv of rt thinking 2, smith richardson 2, vanguard 2, ...annenbeg kohler 2, Lilly 2%

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aspen: The Templetons:John "Jack" Templeton Jr. and his wife, Josephine, of Pennsylvania, gave $50,000 apiece [48] to Wisconsin Justice Prosser's recount effort this year. Jack, an evangelical Christian, has donated more than $1 million to Republicans, according to state and federal records. He heads the John Templeton Foundation, an organization whose critics [101]—including prominent scientists—say it aims to apply scientific legitimacy [102] to matters of faith. The foundation was started by Jack's late father, Sir [103] John the mutual fund billionaire, and in 2009reportedly [48] had $1.7 billion in assets.

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Chester County GOP Candidate ERIC ROE – Right ... - Coatesville Dems

coatesvilledems.blogspot.com/2016/10/chester-county-gop-candidate-eric-roe.html

Oct 29, 2016 - In 2007 at The Gathering, John M. Templeton, Jr. personally introduced author D. ... Prior to the 2004 election, Let Freedom Ring, Inc. (LFR) distributed to over 10,000 U.S. ... worked closely with Karl Rove as a liaison to social and religious conservatives”. .... Harry Lewis, Donald Trump& GOP do not su.

From SourceWatch

=== **:{Let Freedom Ring,** an advocacy organization active with ads targeting Obama in 2008 and whose founder is evangelical Christian John Templeton, and Washington-based Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, which is affiliated with Republican political strategist Karl Rove, are also airing commercials critical of the president’s energy policy.}:

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srcwatch:

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The John Templeton Foundation tries to encourage the integration of religious beliefs and free-market principles into the classroom.

Contents[hide]

Trustees

Accessed May 2010: ^{[1]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Templeton_Foundation#cite_note-0)

External links

Official website

Press coverage

John Tierney, When Every Child is Good Enough, New York Times, November 21, 2004
- "... a recent report, "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students," by the John Templeton Foundation [] summarizes research showing that gifted children thrive with more advanced material and describes their current frustration ...: 'When they want to fly, they are told to stay in their seats. Stay in your grade. Know your place. It's a national scandal.'"

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch

Nicholas Colangelo, author of "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students"

References

↑ Trustees, John Templeton Foundation, accessed May 8, 2010.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Templeton_Foundation