Featured Grant
Science and Religion in Islam
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Opening panel (from left to right): Keith Ward, Charles Townes, Mustapha El Mourabit, Roald Hoffmann, and Nidhal Guessoum |
The Interdisciplinary University of Paris (IUP), whose Science and Religion in Islam program was launched in 2004 with support from the John Templeton Foundation, held a major conference in Doha, Qatar this past spring in collaboration with the Al Jazeera Center for Studies (the think tank of the Arabic television network Al Jazeera). The conference, titled "Science, Cultures, and the Future of Humanity," was funded by Al Jazeera, which also gave the event extensive coverage, reaching millions of Arab viewers.
For Dr. Jean Staune, founder and general secretary of the IUP, the gathering in Doha was a unique opportunity "to create dialogue and debate between Muslim experts in science and religion and their Western counterparts." Conference participants included:
- Roald Hoffmann of Cornell University, the 1981 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
- Nidhal Guessoum, a physicist at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
- Bruno Abd-al-Haqq Guiderdoni, an astrophysicist who directs the Observatory of Lyon, France
- Charles Townes of the University of California-Berkeley, winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics
- Denis Alexander, director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at Cambridge University
- Keith Ward, the former Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University and a Fellow of the British Academy
- Mehdi Goshani, an Iranian philosopher and theoretical physicist, and
- Mustapha El Mourabit, an epistemologist and biologist and the director of the Al Jazeera Center for Studies
The conference concluded by issuing the "Doha Declaration," which proclaims that "the so-called 'warfare between science and religion' is unnecessary and destructive—to religion, to science, and to the future of our species and our planet." For more information about the conference, see the July 23rd 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."
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JTF-Supported Book
Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution
Karl Giberson, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics, Eastern Nazarene College and Director of the Forum on Faith & Science, Gordon College
HarperOne, June 2008
Saving Darwin explores the history of the controversy that swirls around the theory of evolution and shows why—and how—it is possible to believe in both God and the latest findings of evolutionary biology.
As Giberson puts it, "I wrote Saving Darwin to build a bit of a bridge between two cultures at odds with each other: the scientific community and American evangelicalism. I have lived in both cultures and am dismayed at how far apart they are. In this climate of misunderstanding the ‘naturalism’ of science looks anti-religious and the anti-evolutionism of evangelicalism looks uninformed. I hope to illuminate the tension that divides these two communities and to contribute to improved communications.”
In a recent interview about his book in the online magazine Salon, Giberson emphasizes that "There's an important distinction between a theory that tells us the way the world is and a theory that tells us the way it ought to be." He has also posted a controversial and much-discussed essay on Salon, titled "What's Wrong with Science as Religion."
