By JERRY COYNE - WHY EVOLUTION IS TRUE
Added: Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:37:39 UTC

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This year’s World Science Festival in New York is undeniably a good thing, and that’s why the Templeton Foundation has got its sticky fingers into the program again. They’re sponsoring three discussions, and guess what they’re about:

1. The Limits of Understanding.

2. The Future of Thinking.

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a proper World Science Festival without a panel on

1. Faith and Science:

For all their historical tensions, scientists and religious scholars from a wide variety of faiths ponder many similar questions—how did the universe begin? How might it end? What is the origin of matter, energy, and life? The modes of inquiry and standards for judging progress are, to be sure, very different. But is there a common ground to be found? ABC News’ Bill Blakemore moderates a panel that includes evolutionary geneticist Francisco Ayala, astrobiologist Paul Davies, Biblical scholar Elaine Pagels and Buddhist scholar Thupten Jinpa. These leading thinkers who come at these issues from a range of perspectives will address the evolving relationship between science and faith.

I suppose the Science Festival is so delighted to have Templeton’s money (after all, the organization is one of their “founding benefactors“) that they’ll permit the incursion of panels stacked with Templeton people. Davies and Ayala are both Templeton Prize winners, and Davies’ research is funded by Templeton (see here, too).

But wait—why is the World Science Festival hosting a panel like this, anyway? Isn’t the science festival supposed to be about science, not about how to reconcile it with superstition?

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TAGGED: ACCOMMODATIONISM, RELIGION, SCIENCE