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‘To Be Human Is to Ask the Question, Why?’
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks on the Quest for Meaning “Life is a story. It is our response to the call of suffering in the world.” –Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Morality. The earthly story of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, winner of the 2016 Templeton Prize, came to an end in November 2020. But his response to the call of suffering — a legacy of religious thinking and powerful personal testimony that poured out over dozens of books and a lifetime of scholarship — continues to echo in the world. In his 2020 book, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times,…
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…
John Bare Joins the John Templeton Foundation as Vice President, Programs
West Conshohocken, PA — The John Templeton Foundation is pleased to announce the appointment of John Bare, PhD, as Vice President of Programs. In this role, Bare will oversee the Human Sciences, Character Development, and Individual Freedom & Free Markets departments. He will also serve as a member of the Foundation Leadership Team, reporting directly to President Heather Templeton Dill. Mr. Bare most recently served as Senior Vice President of The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation and Disruptor-in-Residence at Babson College. He joins the foundation with more than two decades of experience in the nonprofit sector, as well as a…
Spiritual Yearning Research Initiative: The Search for Meaning Among the Nonreligious
The Spiritual Yearning Research Initiative (SYRI) is aimed at addressing the spiritual yearnings, existential concerns, and search for meaning of spiritually curious but nonreligious individuals and communities. SYRI’s overarching big question is: How can those who experience a deep yearning for a meaningful spiritual life, but find traditional religion unsatisfying, fulfill that yearning? This question involves empirical, conceptual, and normative dimensions, calling for an approach that is cross-disciplinary in nature. The Foundation’s aim in this initiative is to arrive at a better understanding of spiritual yearning and flourishing among the spiritually curious but nonreligious, by supporting research by scholars within…
ONIX: a search for nuclear T-violation using octupole-deformed nuclei in crystals
Into the Unknown: Foundation Reports from the Edge of Physics
Four new scientific reviews tackle the origins of space, time, and the universe—and the mystery of why the cosmos seems ideally suited for human life. What happened before the Big Bang? Is our cosmos precisely tuned to foster life? Is time an illusion? What are the building blocks of reality? On Friday, November 12, science think-tank the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) will publish the first in a new series of reports that unravel these and other perplexing questions. “These reports cover some of humanity’s deepest and oldest questions about where we come from, who we are, the fate of the…
Brian Greene Talks Black Holes at TEDSocial Event
New York, NY — Just hours after Templeton-backed researchers unveiled the first-ever picture of a black hole, renowned physicist Brian Greene appeared at a Foundation-sponsored event to discuss how black holes are revolutionizing our understanding of reality. “Black holes provide a number of theoretical puzzles that we are still trying to resolve,” said Greene, professor of mathematics and physics at Columbia University and co-founder of the World Science Festival. The TED Social event, “How Black Holes Change Our Picture of Reality,” was organized jointly by the John Templeton Foundation and Simons Foundation and brought together dozens of science-interested members from the…
Raising the profile of Science and the Big Questions (SABQ) research and researchers
The Illumination Tour
OCTOBER 11–17, 2017 | BOSTON, SAN FRANCISCO, LOS ANGELES When what seems like “the ultimate curse” becomes “the ultimate state of being.” When Gordon Gund completely lost his sight at age 30 from the genetic disorder retinitis pigmentosa, his wife Lulie told him she would understand if he chose to end it all. But, she added, if he chose to persevere in the face of the disability, he should be all in: “If you want to do it,” she recalls telling him, “let’s go for it." Gordon Gund’s crisis, and the life that emerged out of it — a…
The Leap to Life: $2.9M Grant to Explore Life’s Emergence
Robotic chemical reactors, synthetic organisms, and artificial intelligence are poised to shed new light on one of science’s most engaging and vexingly murky questions — the origin of life — in a unique new research project with $2.9 million in core funding from the John Templeton Foundation. The project got its formal start this fall at the University of Arizona under the leadership of astrobiologist Sara Walker, who has made several key contributions to the study of life’s origins, and Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and 1995 Templeton Prize laureate. The three-year series of studies and analyses aims to…
