Britain’s Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees has been announced as the recipient of the 2011 Templeton Prize, an award that “honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works”. The £1 million prize is the largest in science, and has often been the subject of scathing criticism by anti-religion campaigners and scientists.
The selection seems an odd one – Rees has, on a number of occasions, made clear that he is not religious, and that he doesn’t see a place for dialogue between science and religion as they cover fundamentally different areas of life. Nevertheless, the Astronomer Royal is certainly not anti-religion – he has in the past been described by Richard Dawkins as a “compliant little quisling” for his moderate views on the subject, and one would suspect this award won’t endear himself further to the “militant atheists” – and has a cosmological viewpoint that leads him to view with suspicion any person who believes “they’ve got anything more than an incomplete and metaphorical understanding of any deep aspect of reality”.
According to the Templeton Prize website…
Martin J. Rees, a theoretical astrophysicist whose profound insights on the cosmos have provoked vital questions that speak to humanity’s highest hopes and worst fears, has won the 2011 Templeton Prize.
Rees, Master of Trinity College, one of Cambridge University’s top academic posts, and former president of the Royal Society, the highest leadership position within British science, has spent decades investigating the implications of the big bang, the nature of black holes, events during the so-called ‘dark age’ of the early universe, and the mysterious explosions from galaxy centers known as gamma ray bursters.
In turn, the “big questions” he raises – such as “How large is physical reality?” – are reshaping crucial philosophical and theological considerations that strike at the core of life, fostering the spiritual progress that the Templeton Prize has long sought to recognize.
This Guardian interview with Rees regarding the Templeton Prize hammers on the point about science vs religion, but Rees steadfastly refuses to become involved (“I try to avoid getting into these science and religion debates”) – making the interview a rather awkward affair, until he opens up more when the topic turns to astronomy and cosmology. But there are a few pearls in there nevertheless, such as this quick riposte:
I think just as religion is separate from science, so is ethics separate from science. So is aesthetics separate from science. And so are many other things. There are lots of important things that are separate from science.
Personally I’ve always found Rees’ thoughts to be cogent and thoughtful – and, coincidentally (or was it…?!), I had turned to him for my “quote of the day” for my news briefs last Monday and the Monday before.
Update: Quelle surprise! P.Z. Myers calls Martin Rees a mediocre “slice of soggy toast”. Also, Richard Dawkins says it won’t look very good on Rees’s C.V., and Professor Sir Harry Kroto says accepting one million pounds will no doubt be “very bad for Martin“, and he should donate it to the British Humanist Association. Meanwhile, Jerry Coyne labeled it a travesty, saying it continued the Templeton Foundation’s “serious corruption of science“. So there.
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