What We Fund
In the charter establishing his Foundation, the late Sir John Templeton set out his philanthropic intentions under several broad headings. These Core Funding Areas continue to guide our grantmaking as we work to find world-class researchers and project leaders to share in our pursuit of Sir John's dynamic, contrarian, forward-looking vision. For 2010, the Foundation has also established several special Funding Priorities.
Core Funding Areas
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February 1 - April 15, 2010
August 1 - October 15, 2010
2010 Funding Priorities
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February 1 - April 15, 2010
August 1- October 15, 2010
Featured Grant: The Next Revolution in Biology
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"In every field of science, when it's successful, you think you understand all of it," says Martin Nowak, professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University. "In classical mechanics," he explains, "there was a time when physicists thought, ‘Well, that's all there is. If I know the place of the particles in the universe, I can predict the future.' But then came quantum mechanics and relativity theory. There was a total revolution." Nowak is hard at work trying to launch another revolution, this time in evolutionary biology. "Our understanding of evolution," he says, "is very incomplete."
Thanks to a five-year, multipart grant of more than $10 million from the John Templeton Foundation, researchers will be able explore some of the Foundational Questions in Evolutionary Biology (FQEB) that have yet to be answered.
For more information, see the January 6, 2009 issue of the Templeton Report.
Featured Book
Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will (Understanding Complex Systems)
Edited by Nancey Murphy, George F.R. Ellis, and Timothy O'Conner
Springer, 2009
How is free will possible in light of the physical and chemical underpinnings of brain activity and recent neurobiological experiments? How can the emergence of complexity in hierarchical systems such as the brain, based at the lower levels in physical interactions, lead to something like genuine free will?
A key tool in understanding how free will may arise in this context is the idea of downward causation in complex systems, happening coterminously with bottom up causation, to form an integral whole. Top-down causation is usually neglected, but is explored in depth in this book, along with the ethical and legal implications of our understanding of free will.
The book arises from a JTF Humble Approach Initiative workshop held in California in April 2007 on Top-Down Causation and Volition, chaired by Dr. Christof Koch. Participating scholars included physicists, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, philosophers, and theologians, offering a range of perspectives on this issue. The resulting publication includes contributions by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, George F. R. Ellis, Christopher D. Frith, Mark Hallett, David Hodgson, Owen D. Jones, Alicia Juarrero, J. A. Scott Kelso, Christof Koch, Hans Küng, Hakwan C. Lau, Dean Mobbs, Nancey Murphy, William Newsome, Timothy O’Connor, Sean A. Spence, and Evan Thompson.
