An awards competition recently administered by the Cambridge Templeton Consortium offers a fascinating case study of the difficulties of funding research at the boundaries between religion and science — and how to enable such research work.

Many of the world’s religious traditions hold that there is purpose in the world and purpose to human existence. It is natural for religious persons to ask: can science detect signs of purpose in nature? This was the question that the John Templeton Foundation brought to leaders of the Cambridge Templeton Consortium (CTC).

Yet for many reasons “purpose” is viewed with suspicion in the natural sciences. The Consortium nonetheless agreed that there are genuinely deep questions in science that can lead to philosophical debate, and in this spirit they were anxious to foster new work on the emergence of biological and cultural complexity. Clearly, more complex organisms and behaviors have emerged over time. If science can understand this trend toward increasing complexity, philosophers and religious scholars can then reflect on its broader significance.

Such research will be boldly cross-disciplinary. “Most of science depends very strongly on having determinate answers tested in a very particular framework,” notes Simon Conway Morris, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at Cambridge and author of Life’s Solution, “and that’s why science is so successful. Yet on the edges of science there are certain questions…Over a pint of beer scientists will say in a relaxed, off-the-record way, ‘This is something which intrigues me very much, but I know perfectly well that no research council will support this sort of thing.’ We wanted to see whether these questions could be studied in a scientific way.”

“We were very concerned from the beginning to run the competition in an open and transparent way. Thus it’s been run as if these were grant applications to a research council, either in your country or in ours,” comments Professor Derek Burke, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia and Chair of the CTC. “Primarily we were looking for outstanding science, science which pursues sensible questions that can be answered and where there’s a reasonable chance of getting interpretable results.” He concludes, “We were a mini research council. The criterion was quality: Does an application represent good science? Is it a proper academic enterprise? Or is it rubbish?” Conway Morris adds, “The point about science is that it’s universal to all humans. In science the facts are checked. You can’t hide behind falsehoods.”

The most rigorous testing occurs within specific scientific disciplines. CTC thus chose three: biochemistry, evolutionary biology and archaeology. The vague concepts of complexity and emergence gradually became specific research areas: biochemistry and fine tuning, evolutionary history and contemporary life, and “becoming fully human: social complexity and human engagement with the natural and supernatural world.”

The call for research proposals then went out to scientists around the world. Biochemists were asked: does systems biology shed new light on the range of chemistries suited for the emergence of life? Is there evidence of fine tuning and convergence in biochemical pathways or in the properties of protein interaction networks? What is the relationship between randomness at the molecular level and emergent biochemical properties?

Evolutionary biologists were asked to look for common features in evolutionary trends. Is “convergence” detectible, and what is its significance? For example, to what extent do differently constructed nervous systems (e.g., mammalian and avian) achieve similar mental capacities? Finally, archaeologists were asked what we can know of the religious experiences of early Homo sapiens. What do Neanderthal burials imply about the evolution of human religion? What do the earliest symbolic cultures — e.g., the cave paintings and small sculptures of the Upper Palaeolithic period — reveal about connections between symbolism and concepts of the transcendent? Is the spiritual sense a human universal?

Over 150 research proposals streamed in from around the world. Gradually these were whittled down to the 40 best, which then went out for peer review. With difficulty, the Consortium finally reduced the number to the top 18 programmes.

By seeing which topics can actually be tested empirically, one learns how science works.

The biochemistry projects are working to determine what causes chemical complexity and where (and how) it has occurred. Among other topics, awardees will be studying non-genomic origins of metabolism, quantum chemistry in counterfactual universes, and how the molecules of behavior are fine-tuned in animals. Others are addressing philosophical questions concerning the relationship between physics, chemistry and biology.

The evolutionary projects are examining specific instances of increased complexity in the biosphere, such as the emergence of intelligence. Thus a biologist, a computer scientist and a philosopher (Lenski, Ofria and Pennock) are using computer simulations to model the simplest systems that can detect information in their environment, store it, and employ it in subsequent actions. Employing the resources of palaeobiology — the study of organisms based on the fossil record — Sterelny, Bromham and Calcott are working to understand the emergence of species in the Cambrian Explosion, that short period about 530 million years ago in which a multitude of new life forms exploded onto the scene. Though there is no place for divine purposes in his work, Sterelny notes, “There is as it were natural purpose in the world, and the patterns of natural purpose are the patterns that selection generates.” Selection produces something like “design for the survival of extinction.” If his hypotheses about macro patterns and higher-level selection are borne out, “to that extent you can talk about the design of species as much as you can talk about the design of the beak of the finch.”

Analogous questions can be asked about the evolution of Homo sapiens and human culture. Liliana Janik is an archaeologist who studies 7000-year old rock paintings in northern Russia. Using laser beams and virtual reality simulations, she and her team will attempt to reconstruct the development of shamanistic images over time, gaining access to the evolution of human religious responses long before written records exist. “I examine the quest for transcendence through tangible records,” she said. These records “strengthen the arrow that points from human narratives, myths, stories and art” and suggest “a universal human preoccupation with other, deeper dimensions of reality.”

Similarly, Caroline Malone and her Cambridge team are exploring the conditions of spiritual creativity in prehistoric Malta. Extensive burial grounds provide unparalleled access to the evolving religious practices of this relatively isolated island culture in the Neolithic period. Their willingness to make massive investments in religious building, even in times of scarcity, reveals something of humanity’s preoccupation with realms of existence beyond the present one.

Understanding the facts is valuable in itself. Still, in the end one wants to know: what is the significance of this emergence of increasing biological complexity, running from the biochemical level through the evolution of life to the emergence of society and culture? In a final step, scholars must ask how the new data bear on that original question of purpose. The connections are not straightforward or obvious, cautions CTC Chair Burke, for “the emergence of complexity in the natural world is not necessarily theologically significant.” Even raising the question can be dangerous. As Conway Morris notes, “We realized that when you’re looking at things which have an element of speculation, there is that much more risk involved. When one tries to explore the ramifications of that concept [of purpose] in the world around us, one has to be extraordinarily careful.”

Yet how can one avoid at least asking the question? Conway Morris pauses. “Purpose is something which fills all humans; no human lacks a sense of purpose. If you do perceive a wider pattern of any sort, then you’re entitled to ask, well, is there something which is being hinted at which might have some deeper meaning to it? And of course that automatically introduces a metaphysical dimension to the enquiry.”

Links of Interest: For further information please visit:
www.cambridge-templeton-consortium.org.

Philip Clayton is the author of Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness. Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology at Claremont, he is currently on research leave at the University of Cambridge.

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