Deceased--Stanley L. Jaki

Stanley L. Jaki
August 17th 1924 to April 7th, 2009

Stanley L. Jaki, a Hungarian-born Catholic priest of the Benedictine Order, is Distinguished Professor at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. With doctorates in theology and physics, he has for the past forty years specialized in the history and philosophy of science. The author of almost forty books and over a hundred articles, he served as Gifford Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and as Fremantle Lecturer at Balliol College, Oxford. He has lectured at major universities in the United States, Europe, and Australia. He is honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Science, membre correspondant of the Academe Nationale des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts of Bordeaux, and the recipient of the Lecomte du Nouy Prize for 1970 and of the Templeton Prize for 1987.

"Death of Rev. Stanley L. Jaki, O.S.B."

by:

G. Gregory Tobin

April 7th, 2009

Seton Hall University

Rev. Stanley L. Jaki, the world-renowned Hungarian-born author, physicist, philosopher and theologian died April 7 in Madrid, following a heart attack. Known as a leading thinker in areas at the boundary of theology and science, Jaki was awarded the Templeton Prize in 1987. He was cited for delineating "the importance of differences as well as similarities between science and religion, adding significant, balanced enlightenment to the field."

He had traveled to Spain from Rome where he had lectured last week on his latest book at the Renaissance-era Casina (Garden House) of Pope Pius IV, headquarters of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, of which he was an honorary member since 1990. He was 84 years old.

Father Jaki belonged to the Benedictine religious order, having joined as a novice in 1942, professed his solemn vows in 1944 and been ordained a priest in 1948. Survivors include two brothers, both also Benedictine priests: Rev. Zeno Jaki, O.S.B., and Rev. Theodose Jaki, O.S.B., who reside at St. Martin's Archabbey in Pannonhalma, Hungary.

He was the last surviving co-founder, with six other Hungarian priests, of the Woodside Priory, Portola Valley, California. He served there as bookkeeper from 1957 to 1960. He later left the jurisdiction of that priory when it merged with another in Manchester, New Hampshire but remained a Benedictine under direct supervision of the archabbot of Pannonhalma.

Jaki was a Gifford Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, 1974-75 and 1975-76, the prestigious, century-old academic appointment in the disciplines of philosophy and theology, which has included as past lecturers Hannah Arendt, John Dewey, William James and Albert Schweitzer.

He was deeply committed to the conjunction between faith and reason, arguing that the flourishing of science in Europe was intrinsically related to the Christian understanding of creation and the Incarnation.

"Although the world was God's creation and, as such, to be profoundly respected, the world itself possessed no intrinsic divinity," Rev. Thomas G. Guarino, professor of theology at Seton Hall, stated. "Father Jaki's work elucidated the notion that in understanding the very laws of the physical universe, science naturally opened out toward the affirmation of faith."

He joined the faculty of Seton Hall University in 1965, attaining the rank of Distinguished University Professor in 1975.

In addition to the Gifford Lectures, Jaki taught widely throughout the United States and Europe, at Yale, Harvard, Oxford, the Sorbonne, and the Gregorian University in Rome, among scores of institutions.

He published more than 40 books and hundreds of articles, chapters and essays over 50 years. He wrote widely on the history of science and religious questions, including a number of volumes on John Henry Newman. His books included The Relevance of Physics, Science and Creation, Chesterton: A Seer of Science, God and the Cosmologists and The Purpose of It All. His final book was Lectures in the Vatican Gardens.

Father Jaki received doctorates in theology from the Pontifical Institute of San Anselmo, Rome, in 1950 and physics from Fordham University in 1957. He conducted post-doctoral research at Stanford University and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. He received numerous honorary doctoral degrees, including one from Seton Hall University in 1991.

Stanley L. Jaki

The Jaki-Godel Theorem


Copernicus Center For Interdisciplinary Studies

Deceased--Sir John M. Templeton

Templeton Prize...good idea; bad idea?

Templeton winner and a fully described universe--NOT

Templeton winner and a fully described universe--NOT

Bernard d'Espagnat

I still maintain that this is a good prize. I think we will have to admit that we may be incapable of describing the whole universe and that some things will have to lie in the metaphysical.

"Science Cannot Fully Describe Reality, Says Templeton Prize Winner"

by

David Lindley

March 16th, 2009

ScienceNOW Daily News

What is reality? French physicist Bernard d'Espagnat, 87, has spent a lifetime grappling with this question. Over the years, he has developed the idea that the reality revealed by science offers only a "veiled" view of an underlying reality that science cannot access, and that the scientific view must take its place alongside the reality revealed by art, spirituality, and other forms of human inquiry. In recognition of these efforts, d'Espagnat has won this year's Templeton Prize, a £1 million ($1.4 million) award sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research at the intersection of science, philosophy, and religion.

In classical physics, what you see is what you get: Any measurement is presumed to reveal an intrinsic quality--mass, location, velocity--of the thing measured. But in quantum mechanics, things aren't so clear-cut. In general, the measurement of a quantum object can yield a range of possible outcomes, so that the original quantum state must be regarded as indefinite. More perplexing still are "entangled" states in which, despite being physically separated, two or more quantum objects remain linked, so that a measurement of one affects the measurements of the others....

Albert Einstein and others objected to the implications of these lines of thought and insisted that quantum mechanics was an incomplete theory precisely because it did not support old-fashioned literal realism. But that's a lost cause, says d'Espagnat, who studied particle physics early in his career. Instead, he has concluded that physicists must abandon naïve realism and embrace a more sophisticated philosophy of reality. Quantum mechanics allows what d'Espagnat calls "weak objectivity," in that it predicts probabilities of observable phenomena in an indisputable way. But the inherent uncertainty of quantum measurements means that it is impossible to infer an unambiguous description of "reality as it really is," he says. He has proposed that behind measured phenomena exists what he calls a "veiled reality" that genuinely exists, independently of us, even though we lack the ability to fully describe it.

Asked whether that entails a kind of mysticism, d'Espagnat responds that "science isn't everything" and that we are already accustomed to the idea that "when we hear beautiful music, or see paintings, or read poetry, [we get] a faint glimpse of a reality that underlies empirical reality." In the possibility of a veiled reality that is perceived in different and fragmentary ways through science, art, and spirituality, d'Espagnat also sees, perhaps, a way to reconcile the apparently conflicting visions of reality that science and religion provide.

Arthur Fine of the University of Washington, Seattle, points out that these views--as d'Espagnat acknowledges--have their roots in Immanuel Kant's distinction between "a world of noumena, the essentially unknowable but real stuff, [and] the world of phenomena." But it's problematic, he notes, to think of noumenal concepts as having scientific value if you can't say precisely what they are.

D'Espagnat's writings on quantum mechanics lay out with great clarity the genuine puzzles that quantum mechanics presents, says Jeffrey Bub of the University of Maryland, College Park. But he's skeptical about finding common ground among notions of reality from art, science, and spirituality. As he puts it, if there's something about the physical world that quantum mechanics isn't telling you, "it doesn't follow that those gaps can be filled with poetry."



And now this may be a slick segway to an unusual section of what we cannot know about the universe and that lies with theology and for some, religion, and skillfully brought to the public by the likes of the venerable Rev. Billy Graham who is now retired and quite frail. Now, I do not subscribe to his religion but Graham did something quite unusual in 1964 with the release of a short [28 minute] film called Man in the 5th Dimension. Of course there was the plea to accept Jesus, etc but it is remarkable that Graham had embraced a bit of science and appears to intimate that all about the universe cannot be quantified by mankind. What is also unusual about this film is that was shot [Graham's World Wide Picture Company] and released in a new and popular motion picture format Todd-AO 70mm. Only 11 70mm prints were struck none of which have survived though there are 16mm prints and video copies available. The film ran from 10am to 10pm at the Billy Graham Pavilion during the 1964 New York World's Fair.

Todd-AO was one of many large format film projection systems that included Vistavision, CinemaScope, Panavision.

Todd-AO


Adjusted Physics?

Copernicus Center For Interdisciplinary Studies

Deceased--Sir John M. Templeton

Knowledge limitations

Palomar Observatory

PBS Palomar documentary

Templeton Prize...good idea; bad idea?

Copernicus Center For Interdisciplinary Studies

Michael Heller

"Copernicus Center Opens in Poland"

by

Michele Calandra

October 7th, 2008

Science & Religion Today

Back in March, when he won the 2008 Templeton Prize (valued at more than 1.6 million dollars), Michael Heller, a Polish cosmologist and Catholic priest, said he would give all the money to endow what he called the "Copernicus Center" in Krakow, Poland. The center, a joint venture between Jagiellonian University and the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Krakow, would be dedicated to studying the relationship between science and religion as an academic discipline.

The Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies is now officially open—funded in large part by Heller. Research will focus on interactions among theology, philosophy, and science (including astronomy, cosmology, biology, mathematics, physics, and the history of science), and the center will organize lectures and public seminars, and publish two monograph series and a yearbook called For Philosophy and Science (in both English and Polish). The center has already established 12 research teams studying various topics related to science and religion.

Press release:

COPERNICUS CENTER FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES OPENS IN KRAKOW, POLAND

October 2nd, 2008

The Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, funded in large part by 2008 Templeton Prize Laureate, Professor Michael Heller, was formally opened today at a ceremony in the Collegium Maius of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.

The Center, a joint venture between the Jagiellonian University and the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Krakow, was established to further research and education in science and theology as an academic discipline.

Chairing the opening ceremonies were Professor Karol Musioł, rector of the Jagiellonian University, and Rev. Professor Jan Maciej Dyduch, rector of the Pontifical Academy of Theology.

Joining the festivities were Professor Heller and Charles L. Harper, Jr., D.Phil., Senior Executive Vice President of the John Templeton Foundation, which awards the Prize. Subsequently, the agreement between the two universities establishing the Copernicus Center was officially signed.

The Templeton Prize, valued in 2008 at 820,000 pounds sterling, more than $1.6 million,was awarded to Polish cosmologist and Catholic priest Michael Heller at Buckingham Palace in London on May 7th. Heller announced his plans to dedicate the Prize, the world's largest annual monetary award given to an individual, to the creation of the Copernicus Center at a March 12th news conference in New York City.

Thursday's inauguration kicked off a two-day conference organized jointly by the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Informatics of the Jagiellonian University and the Faculty of Philosophy of the Pontifical Academy of Theology. The conference theme, "Whether science will replace religion," will be examined by distinguished Polish scholars from various disciplines including mathematics, physics, biology, philosophy, theology, and law.

Research at the Copernicus Center will focus on mutual relations among theology, science, and philosophy, including astronomy and cosmology, biology, mathematics, physics, and the history of science. The Center will organize course lectures, public lectures, and seminars, and publish two monograph series and a yearbook, For Philosophy and Science, in English and Polish.

To date, research teams established within the Center include:

• Copernican Group;
• Science and Religion;
• Philosophy of Cosmology;
• Mathematical Foundations of Cosmology;
• Generalized Geometries and their Applications in Physics;
• Philosophy and History of Physics;
• History of Mathematics: People, Ideas, Philosophical Aspects;
• Neurobiology;
• Methodology and Philosophy of Science;
• Analytical Metaphysics;
• Polish Philosophy of Nature in the First Half of the 20th Century; and
• Naturalized Normative Sciences.


Deceased--Sir John M. Templeton

Deceased--Sir John M. Templeton

Sir John M. Templeton

November 29th, 1912 to July 1st, 2008

"Sir John M. Templeton, Philanthropist, Dies at 95"

by

Robert D. McFadden

July 9th, 2008

The New York Times

Sir John M. Templeton, a Tennessee-born investor and philanthropist who amassed a fortune in global stocks and gave away hundreds of millions to foster understanding in what he called "spiritual realities," died on Tuesday in Nassau, the Bahamas, where he had lived for decades. He was 95. His death, at Doctors Hospital in Nassau, was caused by pneumonia, a spokesman, Don Lehr, said.

The foundation awards the Templeton Prize, one of the world's richest, and sponsors conferences and studies reflecting the founder's passionate interest in "progress in religion" and "research or discoveries" on the nebulous borders of science and religion.

In a career that spanned seven decades, Sir John dazzled Wall Street, organized some of the most successful mutual funds of his time, led investors into foreign markets, established charities that now give away $70 million a year, wrote books on finance and spirituality and promoted a search for answers to what he called the "Big Questions" — realms of science, faith, God and the purpose of humanity.

Along the way, he became one of the world's richest men, gave up American citizenship, moved to the Bahamas, was knighted by the Queen of England and bestowed much of his fortune on spiritual thinkers and innovators: Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, the physicist Freeman Dyson, the philosopher Charles Taylor and a pantheon of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus.

Inevitably, the Templeton charities engendered controversy. Critics called his "spiritual realities" a contradiction in terms, reflecting a fundamental incompatibility between science and religion. To many, the very idea of "progress" in religion seemed strange, and giving grants for “discoveries” in the field invited accusations that science was being manipulated to promote religion.

But Sir John was unmoved. A Yale graduate, a Rhodes Scholar, an audacious investor, a Presbyterian who preached open-mindedness and eschewed literal interpretations of Scripture, Sir John — who began annual meetings with prayers, he said, to clear the minds of shareholders — made billions as a pioneer in his globally diversified Templeton funds, often taking the old advice, "buy low, sell high," to extremes.

In 1939, when World War II began in Europe, the 26-year-old investor borrowed $10,000 and bought 100 shares each in 104 companies that were selling at $1 a share or less, including 34 in bankruptcy. A few years later, he made large profits on 100 of the companies; four turned out to be worthless.

In 1940, he bought a small investment firm that became Templeton, Dubbrow and Vance, the early foundation of his empire. Sir John embarked on mutual funds in 1954, establishing the Templeton Growth Fund in Canada to cut the taxes of many shareholders — Canada then had no capital gains tax — and to emphasize the global reach of its investment strategy.

As investor interest widened in the 1950s, he started funds specializing in nuclear energy, chemicals, electronics and technology. In 1959, with five funds and $66 million under management, he joined a surge of funds going public. Growth was dramatic. The flagship Templeton Growth Fund reported a 14.5 percent average annual return from 1954 to 1992; a $10,000 investment, with dividends reinvested, would have grown to $2 million.

Sir John sold the Templeton family of funds — scores of them with $13 billion in assets — in 1992, and turned to philanthropies that had engaged him for decades. While he was an elder of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), he took a broad view of spirituality, espousing non-literal views of heaven and hell and a shared divinity between humanity and God.

Contending that almost nothing of God was actually "known" through Scriptures and theology, he founded the Templeton Prize in 1972 to foster "progress in religion" — an idea that included philosophy and exemplary conduct relating to love, gratitude, forgiveness and creativity. He called it an effort to redress the fact that no Nobel Prize was given for religion.

Its first recipient, in 1973, was Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who received $85,000 for her charities. In the 35 years since, the prize, given in London, has grown to $1.6 million. And its criteria has been refined in recent years to encompass "progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities."

The Templeton Foundation, based in West Conshohocken, Pa., was established in 1987 to administer the prize and promote "projects to apply scientific methodology to the study of religious subjects," with room for theoretical physics, evolutionary biology, cognitive science and researches into love, human purpose and the nature and origin of religious beliefs. Today, with a $1.5 billion endowment, it largely sustains the controversial modern movement to reconcile science and religion.

Foundation projects have included a multimillion-dollar study of forgiveness, and a two-year study to demonstrate the effect of prayer on 600 patients about to undergo surgery.

Many critics contend that reconciling science and religion is not possible, and that studies to that end are naïve, quixotic or motivated by a desire to put religious beliefs on an equal footing with scientific knowledge.

But others defend the foundation’s approach, insisting that science has no monopoly on truth and that religion and science can cooperate productively.

"We have somehow to break down the barriers between our contemporary culture of science and disciplined academic study" and "the domain of the spirit," the philosopher John Taylor said in accepting the prize in 2007.

John Marks Templeton was born on Nov. 29, 1912, in Winchester, a small Tennessee town 60 miles from Dayton, the scene of the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial" pitting Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan in a battle over the theory of evolution versus fundamentalist views of the Creation. The boy was only 12 then, but issues in the case dominated his later life; he wrote at least eight books on spiritual matters.

He was raised in a devout household and was the first student in town to go to college. Supporting himself at Yale in the Depression, he graduated near the top of his class in 1934, won a Rhodes Scholarship to Balliol College at Oxford University and earned a master's degree in law. He began his Wall Street career in 1937.

That year, he married the former Judith Folk. The couple had three children. His wife died in 1951. In 1958, he married Irene Reynolds Butler, who died in 1993. His daughter, Anne Templeton Zimmerman, died in 2005, and a stepson, Malcolm Butler, died in 1995. He is survived by two sons from his first marriage, John M. Jr., of Bryn Mawr, Pa., a retired surgeon and the chairman and president of the Templeton Foundation, and Christopher, of Colfax, Iowa; a stepdaughter, Wendy Brooks, of Delray Beach, Fla., and three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Among his many gifts was the 1984 endowment of Templeton College, a business and management school at Oxford. In 1987, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his philanthropies. After many years on Wall Street, he renounced his American citizenship in the 1960s, became a British subject and moved to the Bahamas, a Commonwealth nation that has long been a tax haven.

Sir John said his investment record improved after he distanced himself from Wall Street and no longer worried about the tax consequences of his decisions. He was an early investor in Japan in the 1960's and later in Russia, China and other Asian markets. He sold large holdings before the technology bubble burst in 2000, and warned several years ago that real estate prices were dangerously high.

In Nassau, his net worth swelled into the billions, but his lifestyle remained relatively modest. He drove his own car and spent his days reading, writing and managing his foundation. Visitors were given sandwiches, tea and courtly advice in the afternoon at his white-columned antebellum home on Lyford Cay, set on a hillside lush with citrus trees and bougainvillea, overlooking a golf course and the ocean.


Philanthropy and science

Templeton Prize...good idea; bad idea?

Templeton Prize...good idea; bad idea?

For some time there has been an annual monetary award given to one outstanding individual that attempts to bridge the gap between religion and science--the Templeton Prize. Is this attempt in vain or a realistic endeavor? Frankly, I think it is a good idea for there is so much disparity and individual/group animosity between science and religion stimulating politics, multilevel government legislation, and downright hatred. I cannot help but to think, that a potential outcome of this endeavor, uniting science and religion, could lead to a moderation and unification of religion itself. To develop the notion that "religion" is a subset of personal spirituality is a positive thing I feel. Perhaps this could be a result. We can surely all recognize an urgent need for intra-religious tolerance and understanding. If it blends with Christianity it must blend with all other religions as well and as comfortably. There is just too much history of man entertaining a "variety of religions" based on many tenants of philosophy. economics, and sociology. Just look at the number of disciplines of "Christianity" [Baptists, Methodists, Christian Scientists, Catholics, Mormons, Shakers, etc.] or sects of the Muslim faith or of Judaism. Each have a different agenda and interpretations of their sacred texts. It would be a keen idea if the multiplicity of theologies were more categorical [where concepts were more universal and mutually agreed upon] and religion would loosen the reigns of sacraments and institutional doctrine. Maybe this chaos of religious diversity will only be changed via the introduction of something other than the intrusion and challenge of the objectivity of science--say, a global and immediate catastrophe that challenges mankind's existence: Something that would be far more serious than global warming, insidious bacterial/viral infections, or nuclear annihilation--like, external Earth threats. Nevertheless, the quest for religions to embrace science is still not a bad idea and maybe its time for religions to move towards a different perspective and release the chains of ignorance but yet maintain a certain quantity of universal mystery.

This is a curious situation for if you stand back and take in the whole view of what is transpiring, one wonders if the function of the Templeton Prize concept is a "carrot and stick" approach [offering stimulus via cash prizes and recognition] or an organization rewarding individuals who are simply involved in the natural unfolding of a silent and diligent effort to bridge the gaps between religion and science. I suppose time will reveal the answer. I don't believe this effort to merge [whatever the quantitative input would be] science and religion is fortuitous or without merit. Mankind's history is littered with examples of religious modifications by science. It is a maturation story of complexity and fine tuning. Look at the history of the changing of religion by the introduction of a new universe view in Galileo's era. Big names and events were clashing: Galileo, Copernicus, Ptolemy, Catholicism, and the Reformation movement. We are now in the deep waters formulating the definition of life with passionate perspectives. I have indicated elsewhere that it is the institutionalized religion that appears to be more threatened than the realm of science. I probably won't even be a memory when all of this is resolved...and it may never be resolved.

Not all like the Templeton Prize. Mark Friesel wrote in physicstoday.org:

"Does Religion Prize Mislead Scientists?"

February 2001

The Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion may have an undesirable consequence for science. The prize (with exceptions) goes to those who try to create commonality between religion and science, but it may also lead some scientists to compromise their integrity.

When scientists who never wrote a word about religion are suddenly writing books about "god particles" and the like, it indicates to me that the authors consider integrity to be a convenience, truth to be malleable, and both to be subservient to money. Why, then, should anyone trust their research?

The subjects of rigorous intellectual pursuit can be divided into three major categories: science, philosophy, and religion. Religion is based on belief in certain tenets: a god or gods with certain attributes, a priest or seer who can dictate the will of the deity, and perhaps a book of divine laws. Such beliefs do not preclude the use of logic by believers, and a rational investigation of the observable universe can be made based on these beliefs, as can attempts to address philosophical questions. However, if a conflict arises between religious beliefs and the rational implications of those beliefs, or between belief and observation, it is logic or observation that must be perceived as wrong. As an example, given what we know of human physiology, we understand that there is no virgin birth in humans because conception requires the joining of sperm and egg. Yet Christians believe in virgin birth and therefore, to the believer such an occurrence must be possible, scientific considerations notwithstanding. Questioning the belief is not permitted. In brief, a defining principle of religion is that its fundamental tenets are accepted by its followers to be true beyond question.

In philosophy, axioms and rules of logic are fundamental. These may vary depending on the specific topic being addressed and may be investigated using yet other rules and axioms. The subject of an investigation may be religion and the observable universe, but if a conflict occurs then all elements--the beliefs, the rules of logic, and the axioms--may be questioned, because only the use of a logical system is fundamental to philosophy.

Science is based on observation. And a logical structure is created to describe and unite observations. A defining principle of science is that any conflict between observation and logic or between observation and religious belief, is resolved in favor of repeated observations.

I do not mean to propose that we have evolved religion, science, and philosophy in quarantine from each other or from other intellectual activity--art, for example. Yet it appears that science cannot and does not address religious questions at all. The truth of religious belief, by definition lacking any fundamental connection with observation, cannot be meaningfully evaluated by scientific methods. Nor can the truth or reality of scientific principles be meaningfully evaluated by applying the tenets of a religion, based as the latter is on belief.

Within each category, questions may arise that cannot be adequately answered by referral to the category's basic tenets. An individual may perhaps resolve such questions to his own satisfaction by taking refuge in other tenets. However, if a scientist chooses to accept as a matter of faith that Planck's constant is a fundamental quantity, this does not make science a religion, nor imply that religion and science share some fundamental commonality. A religious believer may similarly accept observations as true, but this does not make his religion a science.

Particularly in the context of ongoing attempts by American religious conservatives to infuse public education with their religion, it seems to me that the Templeton Prize is little more than an incentive for them to continue such an effort. It also is a bribe--one that has successfully lured more than one well-known scientist into becoming a spokesman for the right-wing religious cause.


Templeton platform