The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research.What a devastating set of quotes! Reporters should ask the ID spokespeople about this at every opportunity. When foundations with lots of money to donate, who are on your side, can't even convince you to come up with actual research proposals for your "theory", why that is just pitiful."They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.
"From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said.
While intelligent design has hit obstacles among scientists, it has also failed to find a warm embrace at many evangelical Christian colleges. Even at conservative schools, scholars and theologians who were initially excited about intelligent design say they have come to find its arguments unconvincing. They, too, have been greatly swayed by the scientists at their own institutions and elsewhere who have examined intelligent design and found it insufficiently substantiated in comparison to evolution.
"It can function as one of those ambiguous signs in the world that point to an intelligent creator and help support the faith of the faithful, but it just doesn't have the compelling or explanatory power to have much of an impact on the academy," said Frank D. Macchia, a professor of Christian theology at Vanguard University, in Costa Mesa, Calif., which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God, the nation's largest Pentecostal denomination.
Every now & then, Dembski, the folks at ARN, or other ID advocates hint about all these young ID researchers in academia who are just biding their time until they get tenure, and then they'll burst forth with earth-shaking academic studies either proving ID or using ID to produce real, productive insights into actual biological systems. So maybe the Templeton Foundation just needs to wait a couple years. Then, watch out! They'll be inundated with real research proposals. Just you wait! Any Day Now... Real Soon Now... Wait for it...
Agreed. This is soon to find its way into The List-O-Links:
Does the John Templeton Foundation support intelligent design? From the foundation's own website. Excerpt:
The John Templeton Foundation does not support research or programs that deny large areas of well-documented scientific knowledge. In addition, we do not support political agendas such as movements to determine (one way or the other) what qualified educators should or should not teach in public schools. ... [T]he Foundation does not support the movement known as Intelligent Design as such, as an intellectual position or as a movement.
Waiting since 1802...
Of course one doesn't have to be doing research to promote soma earth shaking theory in order to support an earth shaking theory. Any research that produces unexpected results is big news in science. There's lots of room for unexpected results in genome research.
Research what? How do you research the assertion that we will never have a non-design explanation for something? What are the research implications of "We may as well just admit God did it!?"