The Templeton Prize

[McCulloch]

The Templeton Prize honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works. The Prize celebrates no particular faith tradition or notion of God, but rather the quest for progress in humanity’s efforts to comprehend the many and diverse manifestations of the Divine. The Prize has been awarded to scientists, philosophers, theologians, members of the clergy, philanthropists, writers, and reformers, for work that has ranged from the creation of new religious orders and social movements to humanistic scholarship to research about the origins of the universe.

Source

2009: Bernard d’Espagnat, a French physicist and philosopher of science for acknowledging that science cannot fully explain 'the nature of being.'

2008: Michał Kazimierz Heller a professor of philosophy at the The Pontifical Academy of Theology in Cracow, Poland, and an adjunct member of the Vatican Observatory staff. Michał Heller graduated from the Catholic University of Lublin, where he earned a master's degree in philosophy in 1965 and a Ph.D. in cosmology in 1966. His works have sought to reconcile the "known scientific world with the unknowable dimensions of God."

2007: Charles Taylor, a Catholic, argues that problems such as violence and bigotry can be solved only by considering both their secular and spiritual dimensions. He suggests that depending wholly on secularized viewpoints leads to fragmented reasoning and prevents crucial insights that might help a global community that is increasingly exposed to clashes of culture, morality, nationality, and religion.

2006: John D. Barrow, member of a Calvinist church, for his "writings about the relationship between life and the universe, and the nature of human understanding [which] have created new perspectives on questions of ultimate concern to science and religion".

2005: Charles Hard Townes, member of mainline Reformed Protestant Christian denomination, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964. He considers that "science and religion [are] quite parallel, much more similar than most people think and that in the long run, they must converge".

2004: George F. R. Ellis, a Quaker, is President of the International Society for Science and Religion.

2003: Holmes Rolston III, ordained to Presbyterian Church (USA), helped to establish the field of environmental ethics. His work assigns value not only to human beings but also to plants, animals, species, and ecosystems as core issues of theological and scientific concern.

2002: John Polkinghorne, an ordained Anglican priest, for his contributions to research at the interface between science and religion.

2001: The Reverend Canon Arthur Robert Peacocke, ordained deacon and priest in the Church of England, perhaps for his attempts to argue that Evolution and Christianity need not be at odds. He is an advocate of theistic evolution.

2000: Freeman John Dyson, a Christian, for his challenge to humankind to reconcile technology and social justice. He claims, "Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect. "

Is this prize worthwhile?

[Goat]

Although I'm sure the award was given for all of his work, not just that conclusion.

Unfortunately you are wrong in that assumption.

And you are transparent in the shallow bigotry of your presuppositions. For someone with your credentials to accuse someone like d’Espagnat of taking a technical bribe is simply laughable.

On the other hand, exactly what did his talk about the philosophical aspects of QM actually accomplish, from a scientific point of view? All it means is one big 'God of the Gaps' musing, and has no practical application in the real world.

Well, then, it's most certainly worthless. He should no doubt be dismissed along with Gödel. Thanks for sharing ...

Can you point to any practical purpose his musing can be put to?

If you can't, then case closed.

At least Godel made a case for advancing mathematics as a tool. Can you point to what Bernard d’Espagnat musing can be used for?

Or Michał Kazimierz Heller ? What practical matter can it be used for?

[T-mash]

Although I'm sure the award was given for all of his work, not just that conclusion.

Unfortunately you are wrong in that assumption.

And you are transparent in the shallow bigotry of your presuppositions. For someone with your credentials to accuse someone like d’Espagnat of taking a technical bribe is simply laughable.

First of all.. You do not know my credentials. Second of all I did not say accuse him of doing anything. If you are religious and a scientist, the Templeton prize is an easy cash flow. Dawkins for example once jokingly talked with a friend of his about if he ever is desperate for money he could always say he was just kidding about atheism and get a Templeton Prize. The Templeton prize did not award d’Espagnat's work. They just awarded that his work happens to fit their agenda.