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John Templeton Foundation awards $2.8 million to examine origins of biological complexity
EurekAlert (AAAS) ^ | 02 January 2006 | Staff

Posted on 01/02/2006 4:14:37 AM PST by PatrickHenry

The mechanisms driving the process of evolution have always been subject to rigorous scientific debate. Growing in intensity and scope, this debate currently spans a broad range of disciplines including archaeology, biochemistry, computer modeling, genetics & development and philosophy.

A recent $2.8 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to the Cambridge Templeton Consortium [link] is providing the resources for further investigation into this complex and fascinating area. The funds will support 18 new grant awards to scientists, social scientists and philosophers examining how complexity has emerged in biological systems.

Attracting 150 applications, the grant process has generated much interest from a wide range of disciplines. Unique in the interdisciplinary nature of their applicants, the Cambridge Consortium grants will encourage and enable high quality research that approaches the issue from many angles, and will also sponsor collaborative work by people from different academic specialties. All of the work will study how biological systems (molecular, cellular, social etc) become more complex as they evolve.

"This is clearly an emerging area of science, and we are pleased that these grants are specifically aimed at encouraging work that would not easily fall under the parameters of any other grant-awarding body," says Consortium Chairman, Professor Derek Burke.

Questions to be addressed by the projects include:

* Why are biologists so afraid of asking 'why' questions, when physicists do it all the time?

* Can experiments using a digital evolutionary model answer why intelligence evolved, but artificial intelligence has been so hard to build?

* What lessons can rock art and material remains teach us about the development of human self-awareness?

* Can the geometric ordering of specific sheets of cells throw light on the questions currently being raised about design in nature?

* What principles allow individuals to develop social and colonial organizations?

Among the institutions receiving grants from the Cambridge Templeton Consortium are Duke University, Harvard University Medical School, University of California, San Francisco, University of Cambridge, UK, and Australian National University.


Formed by the John Templeton Foundation, The Cambridge Templeton Consortium was assembled for the purpose of selecting and evaluating proposals submitted under the "Emergence of Biological Complexity Initiative." Chairing the Consortium is Professor Derek Burke, Former Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia. Additional members include Dr. Jonathan Doye and Dr. Ard Louis, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Professor Simon Conway Morris, FRS, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Professor Graeme Barker, FBA and Dr. Chris Scarre, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge.

The mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to pursue new insights at the boundary between theology and science through a rigorous, open-minded and empirically focused methodology, drawing together talented representatives from a wide spectrum of fields of expertise. Founded in 1987, the Foundation annually provides more than $60 million in funding on behalf of work in human sciences and character development, science and theology research, as well as free enterprise programs and awards worldwide. For more information about the Templeton Foundation, go to www.templeton.org [link.].

[Omitted some contact info, available at the original article.]


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: biology; crevolist; grant; johntempleton; science; templeton
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To: connectthedots
You believe evolution is true, but you do not know why it is true.

Sure we know why. It's called natural selection.

141 posted on 01/03/2006 7:33:46 AM PST by shuckmaster (An oak tree is an acorns way of making more acorns)
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To: AndrewC

Looks like William Shatner to me.


142 posted on 01/03/2006 7:36:54 AM PST by furball4paws (The new elixir of life - dehydrated toad urine.)
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To: shuckmaster
Sure we know why. It's called natural selection.

I have no problem with natural selection. Natural selection is no explanation for macro-evolution.

143 posted on 01/03/2006 7:44:06 AM PST by connectthedots
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To: connectthedots
That would be irrelevant if true but you clearly have no idea of the volume of evidence for evolution.
144 posted on 01/03/2006 7:45:44 AM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: AndrewC

Gosh, what an obnoxious post.


145 posted on 01/03/2006 7:51:14 AM PST by Right Wing Professor (Liberals have hijacked science for long enough. Now it's our turn -- Tom Bethell)
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To: PatrickHenry
This Sulu revelation is a genuine shock.

Recall Sulu's quote from the beginning of Star Trek IV:

"San Francisco. I was born there."

It all makes sense now.

146 posted on 01/03/2006 7:58:25 AM PST by Quark2005 (Divination is NOT science.)
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To: Quark2005
"San Francisco. I was born there."

I'm really shattered over this. Now, whenever I see a rerun from the original series, and Kirk says: "Standard orbit, Mr. Sulu," I'll imagine that Sulu is thinking: Yeah, pretty boy, standard orbit around Uranus!

147 posted on 01/03/2006 8:10:28 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: PatrickHenry
The funds will support 18 new grant awards to scientists, social scientists and philosophers examining how complexity has emerged in biological systems.

Uh oh!

148 posted on 01/03/2006 8:32:01 AM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: <1/1,000,000th%
social scientists and philosophers

Social scientists and philosophers are fine so long as they admit the limits of applicability of their conclusions (just like any other practice, including the natural sciences, or even religion, for that matter).

Social scientists themselves aren't always the culprits; it's usually the (generally liberal) activists who are too eager overextrapolate the usefulness of their 'theories'.

149 posted on 01/03/2006 8:55:26 AM PST by Quark2005 (Divination is NOT science.)
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To: Right Wing Professor
It's a special form of schadenfreude :-)
150 posted on 01/03/2006 9:31:16 AM PST by RightWingAtheist ("Why thank you Mr.Obama, I'm proud to be a Darwinist!")
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To: PatrickHenry
"Standard orbit, Mr. Sulu,"

It all seems obvious in hindsight:


151 posted on 01/03/2006 10:49:47 AM PST by Quark2005 (Divination is NOT science.)
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To: Quark2005
It all seems obvious in hindsight:

Yes ... hindsight!


152 posted on 01/03/2006 10:58:09 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: PatrickHenry
Yes ... hindsight!

Oh, you horrible man! How could you make Sulu into a "Cross-dresser"?

153 posted on 01/03/2006 11:22:36 AM PST by longshadow (FReeper #405, entering his ninth year of ignoring nitwits, nutcases, and recycled newbies)
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To: shuckmaster
Formidable as they were, neither Stonewall nor his army made it through the whole war. The much-depleted Army of the Shenandoah was smashed by Sheridan and Custer at Waynesboro in March, 1865 with only Jubal Early and a few staff officers escaping. Stonewall Jackson had died earlier following a friendly-fire incident at Chancellorsville.
154 posted on 01/03/2006 3:53:45 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Right Wing Professor; sionnsar
Gosh, what an obnoxious post.

I see you are for free speech.(and post 152 and 153 aren't obnoxious?). In any case, someone has decided post 109 is hurtful to the mind. So be it. A picture posted from NCSE along with some text from the same site is obnoxious. I kind of agree with you.(although it might have been the question mark that was offensive?)

155 posted on 01/03/2006 10:38:48 PM PST by AndrewC (Darwinian logic -- It is just-so if it is just-so)
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To: Physicist
My personal expectation is that hairlessness is an adaptation for heat regulation for long-distance running that went hand-in-glove with the ability to walk upright. (Why? To chase down game. It is said that no land animal can outdistance a well-conditioned human.) Accordingly, I expect that the adaptation goes back millions of years.

... I'll be gobsmacked if there is ever any solid evidence for any of them.

The solid evidence would be when we have a technical understanding of the genes of hair.

Until then, knowing that later Australopithecus (with the larger brain case) indicates that a primate had an improving diet of meat and fats. From this diet of meat and fat we obtain DTA and DHA, two fatty acids essential to developing brain tissue.
Going from shellfish & scavenging to hunter-gather seems to be a relatively short step. Loss of fur would've been part of that step -- giving a rough date of ~1.5 Mya.

YMMV INAA (I'm not an anthropologist)

156 posted on 01/04/2006 2:20:12 AM PST by dread78645 (Sorry Mr. Franklin, We couldn't keep it.)
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To: Coyoteman
... Along with that came large brains (to remember where you were, where you had been, and where the camp was, etc.). Also involved were the high-value foods obtained by hunting.

Should've included you in #156

157 posted on 01/04/2006 2:26:02 AM PST by dread78645 (Sorry Mr. Franklin, We couldn't keep it.)
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To: PatrickHenry
Yes ... hindsight!

"Okay. Who left their feather boa at the Darwin Central New Year's Eve party?"

158 posted on 01/04/2006 2:46:06 AM PST by dread78645 (Sorry Mr. Franklin, We couldn't keep it.)
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To: AndrewC
I see you are for free speech.(and post 152 and 153 aren't obnoxious?). In any case, someone has decided post 109 is hurtful to the mind. So be it. A picture posted from NCSE along with some text from the same site is obnoxious. I kind of agree with you.(although it might have been the question mark that was offensive?)

It's the anatomical references and personal abuse. Come off it, you ain't this stupid, or weren't, before you decided to sacrifice your brain to the creationist group mind.

As far as free speech; you are free to say it, and I am free to express my contempt.

159 posted on 01/04/2006 4:15:55 AM PST by Right Wing Professor (Liberals have hijacked science for long enough. Now it's our turn -- Tom Bethell)
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To: Right Wing Professor
It's the anatomical references and personal abuse.

What anatomical references and personal abuse? The post is now gone so any reference will be uncorroborated thanks to the complaint department. I posted exactly what was on the NCSE site. You can go there, http://www.ncseweb.org/ourstaff.asp, and see for yourself. I now ask you what anatomical reference did I make? What personal abuse did I heap on "Phina"? You brain is fried. Your contempt is returned.

160 posted on 01/04/2006 3:49:57 PM PST by AndrewC (Darwinian logic -- It is just-so if it is just-so)
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