Science and the Media

Hangers-on from my days at Preposterous Universe will recall how (with encouragement from Mark) I managed to avoid a tempting apple offered by a slick-talking serpent … okay, that’s probably a bad metaphor. What I actually did was decide not to go to a conference sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, so as to not give even implicit support to that organization’s attempt to encourage reconciliation between science and religion.

I mentioned this incident to NPR science correspondent David Kestenbaum, who became interested in the entanglement between Templeton and the physics community. He’s been working on a piece about the story for a while now, and it’s finally scheduled to air on Morning Edition tomorrow. Details will vary, but in many places it will air between 6 and 6:30 a.m. Eastern time, and be repeated two and four hours later. It should eventually appear on the web site, and I’ll put up a link when it does. I haven’t heard the piece myself, so if I’m quoted saying anything especially silly — well, I’m sure I’ll come up with some excuse.

Tomorrow’s news today — all in a day’s work here at Cosmic Variance.

Update: Here’s the story; audio not available yet, but it will be soon. I didn’t say anything I’d take back; in fact, I think David chose not to use some of my more confrontational statements. The story brought out one aspect of the Templeton rhetorical strategy that hadn’t been clear before: rather than explicitly promoting “religious” themes in a scientific context, they try to promote discussion of “foundational” issues, the “big questions” that get lost in ordinary scientific discourse.