Martin Rees wins controversial £1m Templeton prizeThe astronomer royal Martin Rees has accepted the annual prize from the Templeton Foundation, which critics say makes a virtue of belief without evidence
Ian Sample, science correspondent guardian.co.uk
6 April 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/apr/06/martin-rees-templeton-prize...In the journal
Nature last month, Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, said the
Templeton Foundation was "sneakier than the Creationists" and alleged that the organisation tried to
instil religious values in science. "It claims to be on the side of science, but wants to
make faith a virtue," Coyne said.
Sir Harry Kroto, a British scientist who won the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1996 and works at Florida State University, told the Guardian that the "congenital wishful thinking" embodied by religion made it incompatible with science. "There is no problem, with a million-quid lure to hook a few eminent scientists, to say that they personally see no conflict between science and religion, but they are suffering from a form of
intellectual schizophrenia," he said. ...
...In 2006, the Templeton Foundation funded a study to investigate whether heart bypass patients recovered more quickly if people prayed for them. The study concluded that prayer at best had no effect. In this particular study, patients who knew they were being prayed for fared worse than others.
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