Sunny Bains unedited

Questioning the Integrity of the John Templeton Foundation

I've just written a long piece for Evolutionary Psychology on cronyism and other issues within the John Templeton Foundation. You can read it here.

The Templeton Foundation III: Cash for rose-tinted spectacles

Shortly after I wrote the pieces for the Times Higher Educational Supplement and Association of British Science Writers newsletter last year, Prof. Paul Davies (a well-known physicist and former Templeton prizewinner) contacted me and asked if I would be willing to participate in a documentary about the Templeton Foundation being put together by an Australian team. I was, he said, one of the few people willing to take the anti-Templeton side. I took his request at face value and, initially, I agreed.

Fortunately, I found out before filming started (by accident, a freelance production assistant let it slip in a phone message) that the programme was being funded by the Templeton Foundation: in fact, it was just one of three films that the company (Piper Films) had been commissioned to do by Templeton. I find it disturbing that neither Prof. Davies nor the producer, Mike Piper, mentioned this at the outset. Even when I asked Piper about it point blank, he didn't think he was doing anything wrong.

Even more worrying is the fact that the piece that was in production was a seed film to get money to do a full-on documentary for Australian TV. The production assistant who gave the game away to start with told me that, if it were to happen (and this was over a year ago, so for all I know it already has), this project would also be funded (at least partially) by the Templeton Foundation.

I guess if people aren't saying nice things about you, the Templeton way is to pay them to do it.

The Templeton Foundation II: The Agenda

The Foundation was set up by Sir John Templeton (now in his mid-90s), who made his money in the financial markets. Though supposedly set up “to pursue new insights at the boundary between theology and science”, it funds many activities that are entirely religious. These include the Epiphany prize for the, “most inspiring movie and the most inspiring television program of the year… presented by the Christian Film & Television Commission.” There is a similar film prize for Europe, plus three prizes for religious journalism. Though not traditionally creationist, the Templeton Foundation Press publishes many books that suggest that the universe was 'designed'.

The Foundation president is John Templeton Jr. MD, son of the founder and chairman of an organization called Let Freedom Ring (LFR), set up to raise money to help Bush in the 2000 election and beyond. LFR describes itself as “supporting the Conservative agenda and countering the efforts of Democrat 527 organizations like MoveOn.org...” Among the issues it specifically lists as of concern is "the sanctity of life," which America-watchers will know is code for a position that is anti-abortion and against many types of experimentation including stem-cell research.

The younger Templeton’s personal links to the Bush administration run deeper than this, however. He and his wife personally donated more than half a million dollars to the campaign in 1998, and is reported in the press to have donated $1 million towards Bush’s 2000 win. (See Mother Jones article about Templeton Jr.’s relationship to the Bush administration). He also developed a statistical construct called the Templeton curve that forms part of the basis for the President’s new pension privatization strategy: a strategy that many economic models suggest is unnecessary.

Of course, the Templetons earned their money and have the right to give it to whomever they want, and for whatever purpose. But in the same way that we would want to know about Philip-Morris-backed smoking studies or MacDonald’s funded research that says fast food is good for you, we should all be aware of the agenda of this organization: especially now that it is starting to fund science.

Next: Documentary about Templeton Foundation: funded by the Templeton Foundation.

The Templeton Foundation I: Buying science

One of the most insidious programs I’ve ever been invited to apply for (needless to say, I declined) is the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowships in Science and Religion. Run in part by the faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University, it’s stated aim is offer, “an opportunity to examine the dynamic and creative interface between science and religion.” Or, in my words, to help blur the edges between science and religion. Since a postcard from them just dropped through my door (again) I thought now might be the right time to discuss this program and the foundation that funds it.

First, the fellowship involves journalists getting paid to go to Cambridge and listen to some organized seminars on science and religion. You won’t be surprised to learn there is not one evolutionary biologist (or, for that matter, any kind of biologist) on the advisory board. I find it fascinating that the journalists who attend these fellowships don’t see that they are doing anything wrong. If they were paid to go to a pharmaceutical industry fellowship for a couple of months, listen to talks and then do some private study, most of them would be fired by their editors. I’m not at all clear how this is any different.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The fellowship is just part of a concerted attempt by the Templeton Foundation to co-op the scientific establishment in this country and many others.

I first heard about the Foundation in 2004 when I receiving an e-mail about their Power of Purpose essay competition with a the huge grand prize of $100K (£60K). The winner that year was Nobel prizewinner Charles Townes. What a brilliant idea. First offer a huge sum: more than for the Pulitzer, Mann/Booker, Costa/Whitbread, or Aventis prizes, for instance. You can then attract every scientist with a religious outlook and a wordprocessor. Then just give the prize to the writer with the best scientific credentials. Instant credibility.

What made me want to dig further, however, was discovering two things. First, that same year (2005), I read that the winner of the Templeton prize for progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities (prize money of £795K/$1.5M: more than the Nobel prize) was going to speak at the Royal Society, one of the UK’s most prestigious scientific institutions. The expenses were being paid by the Templeton Foundation.

Second, Baroness Susan Greenfield had taken £1M from the Templeton Foundation for the Oxford Centre for Science of the Mind (OXCOM) to do scientific research related to religion. What horrified me was that when Greenfield appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today program in January to talk about the Centre she said almost nothing about the foundation that was funding her. It wasn’t surprising that she didn’t volunteer the information. What was extraordinary to me was that the presenter (John Humphries) didn’t ask Greenfield about it (poor research, no doubt). OXCOM was set up to investigate, “how belief physically affects our brains, how religious faith affects experiences such as pain, whether there is a detectable physical difference in the brain between religious and secular faith, and ultimately how the collection of physical matter making up our brains can generate consciousness.” Consequently, if the funding agency is pro-religious, there is a clear possibility for a conflict of interest.

It seems unfair to single Humphries out: none of the other media reports I saw did any more than give the foundation’s name. To me, this was a story missed. In the end, I felt so strongly that I wrote a piece for the Times Higher Educational Supplement and the newsletter of the Association of British Science Writers.

My biggest concern was that, by us journalists not explaining what the Templeton Foundation really is (which I’ll do in detail in detail in a forthcoming blog), we are standing by and letting it buy its way in to the British academic establishment. We are also making respectable (and lucrative, in terms of research money) an area about which we would otherwise be more suspicious.

When I asked the Royal Society why they were willing to take money from the Templeton Foundation to showcase the winner of the Templeton Prize, their attitude was summed up by the following quote from then Science and Society officer, Scott Keir. “We're pleased to work with organisations that complement our aims… The Society is responsible for curating and organising the lectures, including the selection of the speakers…The Foundation are supporting the costs of the lecture and are providing other logistical assistance, eg advice on publicity.” They also pointed out that they could not have afforded to pay for the speaker to otherwise. Nor, I speculated, would they have bothered to. That is the point.

If the Templeton Foundation complements the aims of the Royal Society, then it makes me wonder what those aims are. I thought they were to aid progress in science and to promote science to the public, but it seems to me that blurring the boundaries between science and religion would run counter to this agenda.

Next: What the Templeton Foundation really is and who it’s controlled by.

Government backs medicine without science

I don't want this blog to become a tirade against pseudoscience: there are too many interesting, real science and technology stories out there to cover. Also, medicine is not usually my beat. However, in the UK, the support of pseudoscience—in the form of homeopathy—has recently become law. To me this speaks of a shift in this country away from science and towards superstition and wishful thinking: it's therefore worth writing about.

The law that came in on 1 September 2006 basically allows homeopathic remedies to advertise that they can cure "minor symptoms or minor conditions in humans," defined as those that "can ordinarily and with reasonable safety be relieved or treated without the supervision or intervention of a doctor.” Such products must be shown both not to cause harm and are required to prove efficacy. Seems reasonable enough.

Except that the proof of efficacy does not have to be based on science, but instead on homeopathic 'provings'. Essentially, these are supposed to show that a particular ingredient can cause symptoms. This ingredient is then diluted and can supposedly prevent those same symptoms. The Sense about Science website has a really nice briefing document explaining the methodology behind homeopathy and showing how it diverges from the scientific method (it also explains why homeopathy is not like innoculation or vaccination).

Among the scientific papers this document points you to is an article from last year's Lancet that looked at 220 trials: half for conventional medicine, half for homeopathic. Rather than explain the findings myself, let me quote the authors' interpretation.

"Biases are present in placebo-controlled trials of both homoeopathy and conventional medicine. When account was taken for these biases in the analysis, there was weak evidence for a specific effect of homoeopathic remedies, but strong evidence for specific effects of conventional interventions. This finding is compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects."

This begs the question, if these products are harmless placebos, why does it matter how they are labelled? For me, there are three key issues. First, the government should not encourage its citizens to pay good money for 'medicines' when they are getting placebos rather than cures. Second, by allowing such products to be officially labelled as medicines, credibility is given to the homeopaths that prescribe them, when all they are doing is inducing placebo responses. Finally, by encouraging our people to go to homeopaths for their aches and pains rather than their doctors, more serious diseases causing the minor symptoms may be missed.

I personally have supported the Sense about Science campaign for evidence-based medicine: to me this should be one of those 'lines in the sand' for everyone who believes that the scientific method is the best way we currently have to determine what is and isn't real.

Many thanks to Simon Singh for alerting me to this campaign and for the Sense about Science team for starting it.