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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…
Character, Virtue, Quarantine
The COVID-19 pandemic has created new challenges for nearly everyone around the world. Even for those whose homes are untouched by the coronavirus itself, daily life, work, and family rhythms have been disrupted. One of the John Templeton Foundation’s core interests is the ways that understanding and cultivating character and virtue can measurably improve human flourishing. Over the past several years, we have commissioned research reviews collecting insights and future questions around the topics — many of which seem especially relevant for the challenges that COVID-19 has brought to the foreground. Generosity. From sewing handmade masks to help protect medical…
JTF Symposium: Does Religion Contribute to Human Flourishing?
CAMBRIDGE, Ma. – At a time of spiritual dynamism, as religions surge in the global south and traditional faith affiliations decline in the west, the John Templeton Foundation brought together scholars for a three-day symposium at Harvard to discuss a question of growing academic interest: Does religion contribute to human flourishing? And if so, how can such flourishing be measured among individuals, groups, and social and cultural institutions? The event, organized by the Foundation's Humble Approach Initiative in collaboration with Harvard's Program on Integrative Knowledge and Human Flourishing, featured presentations on the topic by over a dozen academics from institutions around the…
End of Year Message from President Heather Templeton Dill
Dear Friends, Curiosity is one of the core principles that guides our work at the John Templeton Foundation. How can we live meaningful and purposeful lives? How does our social context inform decisions that we make or the way we interact with each other? How does basic science research contribute to human flourishing – even when it takes years to get results or to transform our understanding? These questions drive our curiosity because they focus on the role that humans play in making the world a better place. This year, perhaps more than others in recent memory, reminded us why…
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…
Video: What Is Life?
Have we encountered alien life already and just not realized it? Will deepening our understanding of life in the universe transform our understanding of ourselves? Explore the profound questions surrounding the nature and origins of life that propel the research of astrobiologist Dr. Sara Walker of Arizona State University in this interview. Walker is the recipient of a $2.9 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation for a project, co-led by Templeton Prize laureate Paul Davies, to explore the transitions bridging chemistry and the origins of life. What Is Life? "Life is literally the physics of creativity," says Walker. "It's…
The Testimony of Rocks and Minerals
How Quantum Biology Could Uncover the Secret of Our Origins
Nine Ways to Make a Diamond
Developing a Comprehensive Theory of Complexity
Christian Meaning-Making, Suffering and the Flourishing Life
God-complexity and the Multiple God-Aspects Framework
It’s a grateful life: Grants explore the benefits of gratitude and humility
Sir John Templeton believed that the path to life’s blessings is paved with gratitude. Recent research has supported this intuition that gratitude and humility can, among other things, help forge stronger leadership, more productive workplaces, and better schools. But questions remain: Can we become more grateful and humble? Can scientific research help us design programs to instill the lessons about gratitude and humility? And how can we move this message from the laboratory and into the global community? With support from John Templeton Foundation, researchers are aiming to answer these questions. Scientists are only at the initial stages of work…
Aspects of Religious Experiences: Investigations from Science, Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies
Fields, Geometry and Physical Reality
Theism: An Axiological Investigation
Wisdom & Practice: A New Podcast from the Aspen Institute hosted by Simran Jeet Singh
New Agendas for the Study of Time: Connecting the Disciplines
How Does Religious Participation Affect Human Flourishing?
New research to evaluate long-term links between spiritual practice and physical, mental and social well-being A new set of studies based at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health will examine the ways that individual religious participation can contribute to various aspects of human flourishing over the long term. The three-year project, made possible by a $1.23 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, will offer an unprecedented examination of the potential effects of religion on happiness, life satisfaction, meaning and purpose, character, and social relationships. The studies will be led by Tyler VanderWeele, an epidemiologist who is co-director of…
Planning Grant: Conviction, Virtue, and Pluralism
The Enhancing Life Project
Recently Approved Grants – July 2017
Gratitude as a Fount of Virtue: Examining How Gratitude Fosters Other Noble Character Traits David DeSteno • Northeastern University • $217K • Learn More The Character Course: Design, dissemination and evaluation of a church-based small group programme for character development Roger Bretherton • University of Lincoln • $206K • Learn more Scaling Up a Compelling Mussar-Based Teen Curriculum Steven Kraus • Musser Institute Society USA • $217K • Learn more The Embodiment of Worship: Relations Among Postural, Psychological, and Physiological Aspects of Religious Practice Patty Van Cappellen • Duke University • $555K • Learn more Building an Abrahamic Scholarly Community Kelly James Clark…
Marcelo Gleiser Wins 2019 Templeton Prize
MARCELO GLEISER AWARDED 2019 TEMPLETON PRIZE WEST CONSHOHOCKEN, PA. – Marcelo Gleiser, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and a leading proponent of the view that science, philosophy, and spirituality are complementary expressions of humanity’s need to embrace mystery and the unknown, was announced today as the 2019 Templeton Prize Laureate. Gleiser, 60, the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy and a professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, has earned international acclaim through his books, essays, blogs, TV documentaries, and conferences that present science as a spiritual quest to understand the origins of the universe and of…
Strategic Priority Q&A: Religious Cognition
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 sixth 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 Nicholas J. S. Gibson, Senior Program Officer, Human Sciences, 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…
Two new grants aim to unravel the essence of hope & optimism
Some people are unflappable optimists. The gambler who just knows that the next roll will be a winner. The patient diagnosed with cancer who is sure he can beat it. Or the Cubs fan who knows that this year is the year. What makes us hopeful? When is optimism reasonable? Are hope and optimism good for us? Through two grants from the John Templeton Foundation, sociologists, philosophers, and scientists are seeking to explain precisely what constitutes hope and optimism, to probe what makes us hopeful and optimistic, and to discern when and where they are good for us. With support…
Quantifying the role of cultural forces in shaping human genetics
Religious belief, health, and disease: a family perspective. II. The follow-up and analyses
The Real Danger of Nightmares
Neuroscientist Patrick McNamara offers one of the most startling accounts of nightmares that I have ever heard. In this video for The Well, the Boston University associate professor of neurology first offers the benefits of REM sleep — its association with creative capacities and religious consciousness in humans—and then proceeds to dig into its darker aspect: nightmares. First, he observes something I had not appreciated, which is that people with a certain neurobiology are more prone to have nightmares, and that this tendency seems to be related to having more dissociative episodes (periods of being disconnected from reality) when awake. …
The Role of Religion in Social Change: The Case of “Secret Society” Religions
The Emergence of Prosocial Religions: How Cultural Evolution Favored Beliefs and Rituals that Galvanize Large-scale Cooperation
The Embodiment of Worship: Relations Among Postural, Psychological, and Physiological Aspects of Religious Practice
More than Selfish Genes: Understanding the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis
The Human Natures project: assessing and understanding transdisciplinary approaches to Culture, Biology and Human uniqueness
Prize Competition to Promote Future Mindedness in Capital Markets
Enduring Character Virtues: How After-School Organized Activities Support Character Development from Childhood through Young Adulthood
Promoting Intellectual Humility Among Middle-School Students: Developing an Educational Film and Preliminary Intervention Strategy
Unveiling the nature of quantum reality: a theoretical and experimental approach employing non-destructive weak measurements
What Is Organism-Centered Evolution?
Conceptual Problems in Unification Theories
Faith, Politics, and Intellectual Humility
A public symposium on the prospects for civil discussion In the age of the internet comment, it gets harder and harder to imagine meaningful dialogue between people who disagree about topics as deeply held and divisive as faith and politics. On April 25 in Hartford, Connecticut a trio of speakers with divergent backgrounds but a common interest in revitalizing civic discourse will make the case for — and chart paths towards — just such conversations. At the event titled “Talking About Faith and Politics: Navigating Our Differences with Conviction and Humility," former presidential advisor David Gergen, interfaith youth activist Eboo…
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…
Modeling Cosmic Dynamos in Quantum Electronic Materials
Life on the Edge: quantum thermodynamics, quantum biology and the arrow of time
A Sociological Analysis of the Science of Purpose Project
Eating Disorders and Christian Spirituality: An Exploratory and Co-design Approach to Prevention, Whole Person Care and Recovery
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…
Using Big Data to Cultivate and Nurture Genius
Darwin’s Theory Then and Now: the Historical Foundations of Darwin’s Theory and Its Contemporary Implications for Understanding Human Nature
Monthly Grant Report – June 2019
Recently Approved Grants Human Sciences Project Title Grantee(s) Project Leader(s) Grant Amount Knoxville Marriage Initiative: Partnering with churches to deliver science-based interventions to solve a community problem The University of Tennessee Kristina Gordon $234,800 Natural Sciences Project Title Grantee(s) Project Leader(s) Grant Amount The creative role of stress in evolution and development Yale University Gunter Wagner; Alan Love $886,152 Philosophy & Theology Project Title Grantee(s) Project Leader(s) Grant Amount What Breathes Fire into the Equations: The Metaphysics of laws of nature Rutgers University Foundation Barry Loewer $167,325 The Fine-tuning Argument: A Curated Bibliography The University of Mississippi Neil…
Training Faculty to Tackle the Big Questions of Today and Tomorrow
A new round of fellowships will equip tenured philosophers and theologians to dive deeply into the empirical sciences From the origin of the universe and the emergence of life to the meaning of human existence, certain “Big Questions” are so big that they transcend individual disciplines and beg to be examined from multiple perspectives. In order to help spur more fruitful interdisciplinary engagement, the John Templeton Foundation is offering a new round of $220,000 fellowships to provide recently tenured philosophers and theologians the opportunity to spend up to three academic years in “academic cross-training” in deep engagement with the empirical…
Markets and Morality: Do Free Markets Corrode Moral Values?
Self-Sabotage Is Undermining Your Future. Here’s How to Conquer It.
Humans aren’t alone in our ability to imagine the future and predict likely outcomes. Research shows that animals from ravens to orangutans plan ahead by setting aside tools for later use. Still, our capacity for future-mindedness extends far beyond that of other species. We can dream about many scenarios that haven’t yet happened—for good or ill. (Seneca: "We suffer more from imagination than from reality.") We can constantly update our predictions of our personal future based on what we observe in the world around us. How we think about the future has significant implications for our decision making, and which…
The development of a new methodology for dialogue and cooperation between science and religion in Russia
Cognitive Underpinnings and Consequences of Generosity
Gordon Presidential Fellows Program and Assessment
Advancing Health, Religion, and Spirituality Research from Public Health to End of Life
Service Britain
Surprising Allies
A new book dispels myths about scientists and people of faith Rice University sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund has devoted much of the last decade to dismantling common stereotypes about religion and science, largely by surveying scientists and people of faith to find out what they actually think. Still, whenever she gives an interview on her work, the first question is always, So, is there a conflict between religion and science? “I'm continually surprised about how interested people are in the religion and science interface,” Ecklund says. “This kind of conflict motif, I think, does sell, so I don't feel cynical…
Foundation Releases White Paper on Study of Hope and Optimism
A new report explores the benefits of two related virtues. A new paper published by the John Templeton Foundation explores the latest scientific and philosophical research on the related but distinct virtues of hope and optimism. The 45-page white paper, written by Michael Milona, a philosophy professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, examines findings on the benefits and risks involved in both hope and optimism. Milona’s summary gave particular focus to the results of another Templeton-funded initiative, “Hope & Optimism: Conceptual and Empirical Investigations,” a three-year, $4.4 million project led by Samuel Newlands at Notre Dame and Andrew Chignell…
Experimental evolution of genome architecture and complexity in RNA virus
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…
Spiritual Beliefs as Predictors of Mental Health: A Test of ETAS Theory
What Counts As Religious Experience?
A new survey framework aims to give researchers better tools to compare extraordinary human experiences. What constitutes a religious experience? It depends, of course, on who you ask. Even among academics who study religion and psychology, whether an experience is regarded as religious rather than simply unusual depends on the expectations of both the one who asks and the one who answers — one person’s mystical trance may be another person’s psychotic episode. Over the past several years, religious studies professor Ann Taves of the University of California, Santa Barbara, psychologist Michael Barlev, and ethnographer Michael Kinsella have developed a…
Designing and Assessing Tools to Foster Purpose in the Classroom: A Mixed Methods Intervention Study
The Honesty Project
A new three-year project to investigate the science and philosophy of an understudied virtue. Until the last few years, most academic studies touching on the nature of honesty were actually focused on variations of its opposite: on lying, cheating, or deception. Recent studies have shifted the focus to the virtue of honesty, but have yet to capture robustly what honesty is, how common it is, and how it develops and functions in relationships, groups, organizations and institutions. A new three-year project, funded with $4.4 million from the John Templeton Foundation, aims to significantly advance the science and philosophy of honesty.…
More than a Feeling: How Hope Galvanizes Us Into Action
How To Keep Your Glass Half Full
Quantum Gravity Frontiers
Understanding the Origins of Agape Love: Developmental Insights into the Psychology of Us and Them
SCIENCE FOR MINISTRY IN POLAND: THE SET-UP PHASE
In Memoriam: John D. Barrow (1952 – 2020)
The Templeton Philanthropies mourn the passing of cosmologist, mathematician, and physicist John D. Barrow, the 2006 Templeton Prize Laureate. He died on September 26 at his home in Cambridge, England at the age of 67 due to complications from cancer. Barrow was the Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University when he was awarded the Templeton Prize in 2006. From 2003 to 2007 he served as Gresham Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College in London, founded in 1597. At the time of his death he was Dean of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He received his DPhil in astrophysics from the…
Hope and Grit: Companions on the Road to Change
The Neuroscience of Self-Determination
An ambitious new project aims to expand the scientific understanding of human autonomy Humans are capable of a level of autonomy — defined as self-determined, flexible, and rational behavior — that leaves other animals (not to mention our most advanced computers) far behind. A new three-year, $10 million project led by psychologists, neuroscientists, and cognitive scientists working out of multiple labs at Princeton University will investigate questions relating to humans’ unique autonomous abilities that could have ramifications in fields ranging from computer chip design to philosophy. Nearly $5 million of the project funding will be provided by the John Templeton…
Monthly Grant Report – January 2019
Recently Approved Grants Human Sciences Project Title Grantee(s) Project Leader(s) Grant Amount Tracking and Understanding the Effects of Transformative Events in People’s Lives Regents of the University of Michigan Rada Mihalcea; James Pennebaker $1,684,328 Systematic Review and Analysis of US Federal Investments in Research on Religion and Health University of Connecticut Crystal Park; John Salsman $234,207 The Third Religion, Economics and Society (RES) Initiative: Making the Economic Study of Religion and Religious Markets a Field of the Future Chapman University Jared Rubin $325,346 Divine forgiveness: Phase 1 Florida State University Research Foundation Inc. Frank Fincham $233,994 Religion and human flourishing…
WATCH: How to Make a Map of the Invisible
You can’t see it, touch it, smell it, or taste it. It is like nothing else in the known world. It exists silently alongside ordinary matter, not interacting with it, but exerting a powerful effect. Its strange, almost imperceptible presence affects the very fabric of the cosmos—in fact, it holds creation together. Though it sounds like a concept out of Avicenna or Aquinas, this strange thing is an object of intense study in modern physics: dark matter. While deep mysteries remain, thanks to new methods and approaches—some of which stretch the boundaries of science itself—astronomers are peeling back the…
The Meanings of Convergence
Exploring the Implications of Biological Convergence for a Deeper Understanding of Life and its History Evolutionary convergence describes the phenomena that occur when unrelated organisms evolve similar adaptations to similar environmental or selective pressures, arriving there by very different routes. Hundreds of examples of convergence have been documented (see, for example, http://mapoflife.org/). Many technical questions arise in this work – not least being able to distinguish, in any specific example, convergent evolution from other evolutionary processes like secondary loss, or among different kinds of convergence such as parallelisms. However, enough has been learned in recent years to make it worth…
Love, Goodness, and Renewal | The Colorful Celebration of Holi
Report ranks John Templeton Foundation as one of top global funders
West Conshohocken, PA – The John Templeton Foundation ranked as one of the top ten funders in the U.S. by the number of international grants, according to a recent report released by the Council on Foundations and Foundation Center. The State of Global Giving by U.S. Foundations, published to help identify patterns in global giving, also found that the John Templeton Foundation was the top funder in Western Europe from 2011 to 2015 by number of grants, with 544, totaling approximately $81.8 million. The report, the latest in a decades-long collaboration between the two organizations, found that overall giving by U.S. foundations had…
WATCH: Did Science Invent Optimism?
Welcome to Templeton Ideas
Dear Reader, Welcome to the world of Templeton Ideas. You may notice that we’re doing something a little new. Today we’re unveiling a new home for the stories of the John Templeton Foundation. This is where you’ll find pieces that explain and explore the research we fund that is inspiring people with awe and wonder. We’ll dive deeply into everything from the science of free will and the theory of “rainbow gravity" to explorations of what ancient societies have to teach us about the indelible aspects of human nature. Our aim, and our hope, is to be a home for conversations…
Is Empathy a Renewable Resource?
New interventions may help people open up rather than shutting down when confronted with others’ needs Empathy — the ability to look at the world from another person’s perspective — has long been recognized as vital for human cooperation and for the development of related virtues like compassion. The ability to extend empathy in both thought and action is an important skill for social and interpersonal thriving — but is it also a limited resource, something that you can over-extend or run out of? Recent studies have shown that people’s tendency to be empathetic can drop off in response to…
A formal modeling framework for the dynamics of subjective well-being, including satisfaction with interpersonal relationships
Building an Audience for Science and Faith
Building empathic character via an interactive smartphone app
Exploring the Role of Freedom in Human Progress
The Spiritual, Character, and Virtue Formation of Seminarians
Is space really discrete? Is time really nonexistent?
The Illumination Tour
Tracking and Understanding the Effects of Transformative Events in People’s Lives
Understanding Relations: Children’s Analogical Transfer from Stories and Television
Virtues and Money, an attitude and behavior change intervention
Structural Complexity of Quantum Processes
Randomness and Divine Providence
Molecular insights into historical constraints on evolution
The Roots of Gratitude
Modeling Religion: Simulating the Social Effects of Religion with Cognitively Complex Agents
From the Eyes to the Heart: Shaping Character through Film
Children’s Developing Concepts of God’s Causal Relevance
Effects of Daily Spiritual Experiences and Global Religiosity on the Relationship between Daily Stress Exposure and Health Outcomes in Later Life
Investigating the effects of cosmic inhomogeneities on precision cosmology
