Science and Religion: the Templeton Prize Winner

I heard an interview with Townes the other day on NPR about winning this particular prize.


NEW YORK, MARCH 9 - Charles Townes, the Nobel laureate whose inventions include the maser and laser and who has spent decades as a leading advocate for the convergence of science and religion, has won the 2005 Templeton Prize. The prize, valued at more than $1.5 million, was announced today at a news conference at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York.


The purpose of the Templeton prize:

http://www.templetonprize.org/purpose.html

excerpt:
How might humankind's spiritual information and advancement increase by more than a hundredfold? This is the challenge presented by the Templeton Prize. Just as knowledge in science, medicine, cosmology and other disciplines has grown exponentially during the past century, the Templeton Prize honors and encourages the many entrepreneurs trying various ways for discoveries and breakthroughs to expand human perceptions of divinity and to help in the acceleration of divine creativity.

(jump)

Instead, this award is intended to encourage the concept that resources and manpower are needed to accelerate progress in spiritual discoveries, which can help humans to learn more than a hundredfold more about divinity. We hope that by learning about the lives of the awardees, millions of people will be uplifted and inspired toward research and more discoveries about aspects of divinity. The Prize is intended to help people see the infinity of the Universal Spirit still creating the galaxies and all living things and the variety of ways in which the Creator is revealing himself to different people. We hope all religions may become more dynamic and inspirational.


here is Townes complete bio:
http://www.templetonprize.org/bios.html

excerpt:

Townes has solidified his leadership role in the dialogue at the boundary of science and religion with the publication of many papers, including “Science, values, and beyond,” in Synthesis of Science and Religion (1987), “On Science, and what it may suggest about us,” in Theological Education (1988), and “Why are we here; where are we going?” in The International Community of Physics, Essays on Physics (1997).

The American Institute of Physics Press published a collection of his writings, Making Waves, in 1995, and his book, How the Laser Happened: Adventures of a Scientist, a personal story illustrating the sociology of science and discovery, was published to great acclaim by Oxford University Press in 1999.

His lectures, too, have kept him at the forefront of the discussion. Most recently, he delivered the keynote address, “Do science and religion converge?” at the Second World Congress for the Synthesis of Science and Religion in Calcutta, India in 1997, and the lecture, “The Convergence of Science and Religion,” at the annual UNESCO meeting in Paris and at the American Scientific Affiliation annual meeting at Pepperdine University in California in 2002.

"What the *#%& Do We Know" ? This film is still being shown at movie houses and will soon be available over the Internet. I think it would be neat if some of us here watched it and discussed its implications for science and for faith.

http://www.polkinghorne.org/

I once gave a seminar paper in Berkeley on a book by Polkinghorne.
No big deal, you say. True, but Polkinghorne himself was there, and replied to my paper.

He said I had given the best argument he'd come across for divine timelessness.

Sorry, I can't remember what it was. It was so long ago...

Tempus fugit.

The new Templeton Prize winner, Charles Townes, said that it was "extremely unlikely" that the laws of physics that led to life on Earth were accidental.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-prize10mar10,0,7011552.story?coll=la-home-nation

I think what Townes means is that it is extremely unlikely unless there is a Multiverse. Martin Rees, who is not a theist, comes to exactly the same conclusion in his book JUST SIX NUMBERS. Rees, however, posits a Multiverse.

Since the Multiverse notion involves effectively an infinite number of additional universes, and is not straightforwardly 'observable' in the normal scientific sense (since other universes with different laws of physics are, by definition, not physically accessible to us), then probably what Townes means is that he rejects the Multiverse idea as being: a) an egregious violation of Ockham's Razor; and b) as having to posit an invisible infinity, which kind of defeats the purpose of explaining the laws of physics without positing the invisible infinity that is God.

In other words, he may simply find the Multiverse idea ontologically extravagant and incoherently motivated, compared to theism.

Anyway, it's good to see a Nobel Laureate in Physics winning this prize. It demonstrates that not all religious and spiritual thinking is fundamentalist baloney.

Materialists and fundamentalists represent two sides of the same coin. They each set up a false dichotomy between science and religion, and opt for one or the other. People like Townes, on the other hand, simply understand the false nature of the dichotomy.