Templeton wastes $ 630,791 on “biology” research, finally making its anti-evolution agenda explicit

The John Templeton Foundation has announced yet another big grant for “biology” research, except that its principal investigators are a theologian (Christopher Southgate) as well as a biologist (Niles Lehman). Click on the screenshot to go to the announcement. As you see, the grant, which just started, will last 32 months, and eat up over half a million dollars:

 

But first meet the principals/ Southgate is an associate professor of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter. His own website details his activities, and, as usual, he’s been supported by Templeton in several ways. There’s no evidence that he has any qualifications to be Principal Investigator on a biology grant:

THEOLOGY – Chris has taught at the University of Exeter since 1993. His main fields of study are the science-religion debate, ecotheology and environmental ethics. He welcomes enquiries from prospective research students. His current project is on divine glory (see Zygon, Dec 2014)

His current teaching includes the modules ‘Evolution, God and Gaia’, and ‘God, Humanity and the Cosmos’. His book The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil (Westminster John Knox Press, 2008) has been described as ‘quite excellent’ (Church Times)

Chris is Project Director for a major new project in practical theology, aimed at identifying good practice after a congregation has suffered a sudden tragedy. For details see www.tragedyandcongregations.org.uk. This project is funded by the Templeton World Charities Foundation Inc.

SCIENCE – Chris will also be Principal Investigator on a new scientific project starting in January 2018 entitled ‘Cooperation and interpretation in the emergence of life’. More details shortly.

But wait—there’s more:

Southgate’s research and teaching won him a Templeton Award, and he has since served as a Coordinating Editor of the Science and Religion Textbook Project for the Templeton Foundation.

But wait: there’s still more!:

• “How can congregations be helped in times of tragedy?”, £154,977 from the Templeton World Charities Foundation [JAC: see above]
• “Information and the Origins of Life’, with Andrew Robinson. £196,562, Science and Transcendence Advanced Research Series, made possible by the Templeton Foundation, 2008-2011.

As usual, once you have a stall in the Templeton stable, they keep giving you big buckets of oats.

Niles Lehman is a professor of chemistry at Portland State University, and, at least, has some qualifications, since his research is in prebiotic chemistry. Like Southgate, he’s been munching from Templeton’s feed bag for a while; this announcement is from 2006:

Niles Lehman, Chemistry faculty, received a $436,432 grant from the John Templeton Foundation for “NetLife: Experimental Evolution of Networks in Abiogenesis.”

What a pity he had to put together a Templeton grant proposal with a theologian. But why on earth did Lehman do it?

Well, of course, there’s the money—essential to advance both your research and your career. But that isn’t all: have a look at Templeton’s description of what the grant is about. I’ve rarely seen Templeton be so explicit about why they’re constantly going after neo-Darwinism:

The Darwinian research program has been very successful over almost 150 years. But two of its core presumptions militate against pursuit of one of JTF’s key areas: ‘the exploration of the evolution and fundamental nature of life, especially as they relate to meaning and purpose’. These Darwinian presumptions are: the centrality of competition, and the need to avoid teleological explanations. 

In other words, because the Templeton foundation doesn’t like competition (although of course Sir John made his money as a mutual fund manager) or nonteleological—i.e., naturalistic—explanations, they have to attack the evil instantiation of those paradigms: modern evolutionary biology. Clearly, Templeton is trying to buttress Sir John’s original agenda, which was to find evidence for God in science, and to finally answer those Big Questions of meaning and purpose. And such evidence would be teleology in biology: non-materialistic evidence of “purpose” or directionality in evolution.  Ergo, this grant sets out to find it:

This project works at the transition from non-life to life, to clarify key characteristics of life at its origin, and therefore its fundamental nature. We draw on published work by the project team showing the importance a) of cooperation between RNA fragments in developing catalytic ability and correct folding, and b) of purposive responses to signs in the environment (interpretation) understood within a naturalised teleology, also demonstrated in single RNA molecules. Showing interpretation in proto-life implies that meaning-finding and purpose goes ‘all the way down’. Through empirical research and computer modeling, the present project seeks to answer the question: can a cooperative system of RNA catalysts be constructed capable of two modes of action based on interpretation of the state of the environment. Using proven experimental systems, computer models and game theory, we will explore adaptive interactions between these two behaviors in evolutionarily ancient molecules. The project aims to show that cooperation (rather than mere competition) and interpretation (which is inherently purposeful) may together have been intrinsic to the emergence of life. We expect at least four major papers to result from the study, together with presentation at the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, a review article on the philosophical implications, and a TED talk. The proposed work could help to show that the default mode of Nature can be meaning-seeking and cooperative, not selfish as is widely supposed.

I am astonished, for of course cooperation between fragments of RNA could be (and almost certainly is) the result of natural selection, not God telling the molecules, “Thou shalt cooperate in helping big molecules fold properly.” As for the “purposive responses to signs in the environment. . . understood within a naturalised teleology”, I have no idea what that means. If they find molecules cooperating (and by that I mean “working together”), how can that provide evidence for God? Does the cooperation of molecules in clotting blood, or fighting antigens, also denote “purposive responses”? No, I’m afraid that Drs. Lehman and Southgate will have to do better than showing cooperation to convince us of teleology in nature.

Well, they strain at gnats:

. . . we will explore adaptive interactions between these two behaviors in evolutionarily ancient molecules. The project aims to show that cooperation (rather than mere competition) and interpretation (which is inherently purposeful) may together have been intrinsic to the emergence of life.

Again, what does it mean to say that “interpretation is inherently purposeful”? Is that the job of theologian Southgate to get his $300,000 by pronouncing, “Cooperation means God did it”? And in what way would “interpretation”, which is a phenomenon of human mentality, have been “intrinsic to the emergence of life”?

So we see again an enormous waste of money, and a seemingly reputable scientist getting mired in the hinterlands of theology. It is beyond me how a researcher can participate in such a project, unless he’s either a believer or desperate for money.

The only good thing about this announcement is that Templeton pulls no punches in telling us why they don’t like modern evolutionary biology: it’s too naturalistic (no teleology) and too competitive (presumably between “selfish genes” or organisms themselves in ecology and evolution). And so they throw money at projects that attack these paradigms.

The thing is, we have no evidence against pure naturalism, and competition among genes and individuals is well documented. Of course “selfish” genes can produce cooperation, something that Dawkins has been at pains to emphasize given the misconstrual of his title “The Selfish Gene.” But that’s not enough for Templeton. They not only want to show cooperation (which is presumably why they fund people like David Sloan Wilson and Martin Nowak), but also that the cooperation comes from God. Sadly, there’s still no evidence for Templeton’s teleological God (remember, they once funded Intelligent Design projects for that reason), and so they throw good money after bad.

I find the John Templeton Foundation reprehensible, for they take advantage of scientists’ need for money to push their own agenda, which is a nasty miasma of theology and science. I decry any scientist who would take money from them, and I won’t listen to excuses like “I’m just doing pure science.” In this case Lehman doesn’t have that excuse, for he co-wrote a grant with a theologian designed to find purpose in the origin of life. Shades of Genesis!

Here: have a six-minute video (click on screenshot) featuring Southgate telling us about God’s nature, and supposedly answering the question, “Did God make animals suffer?” (I gather Southgate’s answer is “yes”, and his astonishing explanation is apparently so that animals could experience the sufferings of Jesus and, like humans, be redeemed by the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Typical theological apologetics. This bit starts at 4:42.)

Creation may be groaning, but so is Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus)!