---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Templeton Foundation <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, May 28, 2009 at 9:19 PM
Subject: Templeton Report: Myth-Busting, from Galileo to Heisenberg
To: [email protected]
[image: Templeton Report] [image: News from the John Templeton
Foundation] May 28, 2009
Myth-Busting, from Galileo to Heisenberg [image: Galileo Goes to Jail
and Other Myths about Science and Religion (Harvard University Press,
2009).] *Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and
Religion*(Harvard University Press, 2009).
"The idea that Galileo was tortured by the Catholic Church for his views on
astronomy encapsulates for many people the history of science and religion,"
says Ronald Numbers, a leading historian in the field and a professor at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison. The editor of a new volume called *Galileo
Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and
Religion*<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=e6t4lsw9269m9edr7ifsrb90f486g>,
Numbers explained to the *Templeton Report* that Galileo, in fact, was never
subjected to the Inquisition's harsh punishments. He was treated during his
trial like an "honored guest, not some low-down heretic."
The book, published by Harvard University Press and based on a 2007
conference supported by the Templeton
Foundation<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=6zxfi9leiu6tmeq6gzshcyqi8b28l>,
includes essays by twenty-five historians and philosophers of science, each
of whom tries to set the record straight on some widely believed "myth" in
the complicated relationship between science and religion.
Michael Shank, a colleague of Numbers in the history of science department
at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, challenges the idea that the
medieval church suppressed the growth of science. By 1500, he notes, there
were sixty universities throughout Europe and "30 percent of the medieval
university curriculum covered subjects and texts concerned with the natural
world."
Which is not to say that Christianity was somehow solely responsible for the
development of modern science. As Noah Efron, who chairs the program in
Science, Technology, and Society at Bar Ilan University in Israel, observes
in his essay, scientists like Johannes Kepler and Copernicus "owe a great
debt to their Greek forbears" and also "benefited from Muslim and, to a
lesser degree, Jewish philosophers of nature."
James Moore, a historian at the Open University in England and co-author of
a best-selling biography of Darwin, takes on the myth that evolution
destroyed Darwin's faith, until he reconverted on his deathbed. The idea was
popularized, according to Moore, by a number of "untutored evangelicals." In
fact, Darwin's faith faltered slowly over the course of his lifetime, and he
told his family, a few years before his death, that he was "content to
remain an agnostic."
[image: Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, Heisenberg (clockwise from upper
left)] Clockwise
from upper left:
Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, Heisenberg.
Nor did Darwin's ideas destroy philosophical arguments for God's existence,
writes Jon Roberts, a professor of intellectual history at Boston
University. After Darwin, theists simply broadened the scope of their
argument to say that it was not the pattern of living things that proved the
case for God but rather "the intelligibility of the natural world as a
whole."
Matthew Stanley of New York University examines Albert Einstein's
declarations about the divine and concludes that he did not believe in a
personal God. "To Einstein," Stanley writes, "divine judgment and the
efficacy of prayer seemed completely implausible in light of the consistency
of science." And Daniel Patrick Thurs, the author of *Science Talk: Changing
Notions of Science in American Popular Culture*, shows why various
20th-century mystics are mistaken in trying to find "room for spirituality"
in the "jostling and overlapping possibilities" of Heisenberg's uncertainty
principle.
For Ronald Numbers, the point of the essays is not to defend one or another
side in these heated historical disputes. "I don't have a dog in this
fight," he told the* Templeton Report*. "I'm not defending science, and I'm
not a religious believer. I just want people to know what happened."
[image: Notebook]
Templeton on YouTube [image: Christopher
Hitchens]<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=hdtat0prstgqljsy81asfuxm7fega>
The Foundation has now posted on YouTube more than fifty video clips from
recent Templeton Book Forum events, Big Questions events, interviews with
Templeton Prize laureates, and other lectures and discussions. The most
viewed videos so far include a debate between Christopher Hitchens and
Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete on the Big Question "Does science make belief in
God obsolete?" and an interview with author Dambisa Moyo about her new book,
*Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa*.
To see these and other videos, visit the John Templeton Foundation YouTube
Channel<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=chrs3fye0cldh3qrkwzcgdtg7kwyx>
.
*In Character* in the News [image: In Character]
*In
Character<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=hu7ltcuxltj06sbbuc7nj6y3n1b2h>
*, the Templeton Foundation's thrice-yearly "Journal of Everyday Virtues,"
was recently the subject of a glowing feature
article<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=39x4j87m841zw0a0puq7w7jcjdw6y>in
the
*Philadelphia Inquirer *by Carlin Romano. He described *In Character *as
combining "a magazine's pizzazz and bold graphics with a scholarly journal's
intellectual heft and authority."
Romano visited Templeton headquarters just outside of Philadelphia, where he
spoke with the Foundation's executive vice president Arthur Schwartz and* In
Character *editor Charlotte Hays. "These virtues are perennial," Schwartz
told him. "We thought it would be nice to shed light on them." Hays
explained: "What I want to do with this magazine is to make virtue as
interesting as vice. Not to preach virtue, but to examine it."
Romano highlighted the journal's "feisty roundtables that have asked tough
questions." The fall 2008
"forgiveness<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=dk6n6m9hvmqq6buy8g16vmbvt791s>"
issue gathered nine intellectuals, including Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and
Rwandan genocide survivor Immaculée Ilibagiza, to debate, "Must We Forgive
the Unforgivable?" The
"courage<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=l1pn54u1yshgcc9tk8qlkfi7svho2>"
issue brought together NYU Islam expert Irshad Manji, Johns Hopkins
psychiatrist Paul McHugh, Yiddish scholar Ruth Wisse of Harvard, and others
to ponder, "Were the 9/11 Terrorists Brave?"
World Science Festival 2009 [image: World Science Festival]
The World Science Festival will take place in mid-June in New York City for
its second year, again with major grant
support<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=8lu1md4i5803g6yhekg43ws1kmv8b>from
the Templeton Foundation. Declared "a new cultural institution" by the
*New York Times* and "unspeakably cool" by *Time Out New York*, the multiday
event will feature a Templeton-funded Big Ideas series, with five panels:
- Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek and cosmologist John Barrow are joined by
physicists Paul Davies and Michael Turner to discuss "Nothing: The Subtle
Science of
Emptiness."<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=e4s0a1az9vvt8aqg0zsku9al29xbk>
- The noted evolutionary biologists E.O. Wilson and Sarah Hrdy and other
panelists explore "What It Means to Be Human: The Enigma of
Altruism."<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=919j6g1la985r1hhvwgjoqnjbh38v>
- Physicists Roger Penrose, Sean Carroll, and George Ellis, philosopher
David Albert, and others consider "Time Since
Einstein."<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=bok12q2wfxsy7dieqf54m4pwet66b>
- Nobel laureate Paul Nurse, psychologist Daniel Wegner, neuroscientist
Patrick Haggard, and philosopher Alfred Mele discuss "Yours to Decide:
Fate, Free Will, Neither or
Both?"<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=gz6nbbycv2b76unyi10diz9lfyg2h>
- And physicist Brian Greene, Nobel Laureate David Gross, cosmologist
Andrei Linde, and philosopher Nick Bostrom ponder "Infinite Worlds: A
Journey Through Parallel
Universes."<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=klpyqpipzpiglq7khxo88zwltcbv6>
The inaugural World Science Festival in 2008 attracted over 120,000 people
to 44 events and 22 venues located throughout New York City. For more
information about this year's Festival or to buy tickets, visit
http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=es66clbeuo26x41xzjhac0wr4u6y7>
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For more information, write to [email protected].
For a print version, click
here<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=5d20kxesrh1146h4as95gx0ha7esq>.
For previous issues of the *Templeton Report*, click
here<http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=262&id=7p3faw0c4m2xfe8xa7uqgo31bcv0o&id2=gp9kozhqdrp5694s8wzf8xgazl4fn>.
[image: John Templeton Foundation]
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