Copy of December 3, 2010 message sent in reply to Steve Paulson...
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Regarding "To the Best of our Knowledge" on Wisconsin Public Radio (and via the University of Wisconsin), and Krista Tippett as well.
On Fri, 3 Dec 2010 11:34:41 -0600, "Paulson, Steve" <steve.paulson at wpr.org> wrote:
>Dr. Mr. Higbee,
>
>I'm sorry to hear that our funding from the Templeton Foundation bothers you so much. Of course, I disagree that this has tainted our coverage of science and religion.
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As a media darling of the Foundation I don't see how you can have coverage that is anything but tainted. Here's documentation of your darling status:
http://www.templeton-cambridge.org/fellows/showfellow.php?fellow=6
As with Krista Tippett, you have joined with her in a new public radio chorus that apparently seeks to conflate science with religion, to apologize for and protect religion, to hide the truth about people's real lives with religion, and to promote the agenda of a now deceased conservative sugar daddy whose foundation lives on.
http://www.templeton.org/templeton_report/20100317/
Regarding the conflation, purposeful confusion, and smoke blowing, read over the tit for tat style the Foundation has on the following web page:
http://www.templeton.org/evolution/
And about their latest prize winner: http://www.templetonprize.org/currentwinner.html
Notice how their prize happens to go to a man who says "…science is a way of knowing, but it is not the only way."
So there you go Mr. Paulson. You have your way out, as a "journalist." You can pretend that everything is equal when it's not. Templeton has given you permission. But here's a relevant response to worshiping at the alter of supposed objectivity from Keith Olbermann:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40202512/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/
And also here's three related videos on the issue from Dr. Brian Cox:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPrdK4hWffo&feature=&p=C7F8740EA90180B2&index=0&playnext=1
In any case, with regard to religion, science, and spirituality, the devil is in the details.
Which god would you and Templeton have us believe in? Any of them? Whose religion? The traditional spirituality that is tied to mysticism? Tied to which religion? Which god?
If you cannot answer these questions you're not being honest.
But science is not JUST a way of knowing. It just so happens to be the MOST accurate method of separating fact from fiction humanity has developed thus far. Perhaps Templeton didn't realize this. And his big pockets are helping people like you and Tippett to confuse and conflate the issue. As a child of the Enlightenment, you really ought to know that your cell phone and your computer work because of science, not because the Mormon God had literal sex with Mary the mother of Jesus. Not because the Catholic God told the pope it was ok to hide pedophile priests. Not because Islamic African tribes believe they should mutilate the genitals of their little girls, and not because the outrageous mohels in Israel do the same to little boys - all in the name of obedience to their gods. And so on. So Templeton's ignorance of the history of science and religion is playing itself out on your little program and on Tippett's one sided obfuscational white washing program.
You don't have a Ph.D. or a Nobel prize.
What do you know about what these "scientists" know?
But when you get a scientist on who says he believes in god, ask him which one? The Mormon God? The Catholic God? The Islamic God? They are all very different. And using the word god to describe solely love or sex or whatever, without giving that caveat up front in the conversation, it's dishonest. We need to know which god and which type of spirituality you and Templeton would have us believe in.
Your fellow in the foundation Tippett is highly responsible for conflation and purposeful confusion, such as via her recent book about Einstein's supposed God, and her constant references to awe as being a religious feeling.
But you know, as someone who spent 25 years in a cult, I resent her and your use of the G-word without your stating just exactly which god you're referring to. The one that I believed in, who had sex with Mary, and who told me that masturbation was evil and needed to be confessed to many strange men at church, and who wants to micromanage the sex lives of all adults and children while allowing their founding prophets to sleep with 14 year olds and the wives of other men? Or the god of evangelical Christians, the ones who hate Mormons, a god I never really believed in when I was a Mormon? Or the gods of the other religions, and so on. It just so happens that Einstein believed in NONE of these gods. And so, Tippett's use of the G-word in this case is essentially a confusing conflating lie. Einstein's God was N-O-T the God of Mormonism, nor of 99 to 100% of the other religions present when Einstein was alive.
Now, maybe in the hippie influenced Unitarian Universalist religious education classrooms of today, you can get people to say their god is sex or love or the Universe. But those uses really aren't helpful relative to a "dialogue" between science and religion, because each religion has it's own unique definition of the G-word. And so the very use of the word in the first place, by people like Tippett on her program and in her book, and by your fund providing foundation & it's fellows and friends, it just confuses the issue and whitewashes over what is really inside of people's heads on all these issues. And it also whitewashes the problems that come when people believe in angry and abusive concepts of a god, as in Mormonism and as in Islam (especially Sunni Islam where young men are driven to suicide due to the gender apartheid).
And now to the issue of taint. Here are some key points showing how your program is tainted:
You are listed on one of the Templeton web sites. So that's a taint.
They did support Gibson's outrageously ghoulish and anti-Jewish film Passion of the Christ. So that's a taint.
Hitchens on the Gibson issue:
http://www.slate.com/id/2096323/
and
http://www.slate.com/id/2260937/
And the connection between Templeton and Gibson's film Passion of the Christ:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1352328/posts
The Foundation called Passion of the Christ "...the Most Inspirational Movie of 2004?" Mr. Paulson, what does this mean? It means your Foundation just loves a film by a Jew hating ultra right wing Catholic fascist.
Templeton was known as a "conservative sugar daddy," so that's a taint. Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation#Accusations_of_conservative_orientation
The wikipedia article on Templeton has several other key criticisms of inappropriate bias, and a bias which runs counter to the traditional public radio listenership (liberals, whereas the foundation is known for being conservative), so that's a taint.
Nobel prize winner Kroto has been highly critical of the Foundation, so that's a taint - since you've ignored his criticism. But I guess your journalism degree (if you have one) trumps his Nobel prize. And even the Foundation considers their own prize to be superior to the Nobel.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=0ae046b8-576a-478f-8c39-e8d56d9036c7
Templeton established his prize to go toward "Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities," but that's a taint because, if you are a science journalist, you need to find out what is meant by the word spiritual in this case. Which heaven? Whose God? Which religion?
Pretty much none of the religions have an interest in science finding their heaven. Religion rejects science's ability to reach their god & their heaven, and they also reject science's ability to state that given religious views are bogus, unfounded, and probabilistically very very unlikely. And also science's ability to state that some religions are worse & more abusive than others - more damaging to human thriving & human happiness. So, since it's your paid job to "discover spiritual realities," how's that going with your job as a science reporter and a program which claims to be reporting on science? Which religion have you verified is true? Which god? How's the Foundation's efforts going as filtered through your own work at a part of the University of Wisconsin?
Also, as a darling of the Foundation you stand, as with other fellows and recipients of Templeton's largess, as someone who can help to further the key goal of the foundation, to establish "a new interdisciplinary science of Godly Love," as per
http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/1323/god,_science_and_philanthropy/
But you know, the Mormon God wasn't all that loving. He really wasn't. And Mohammad's God, he pretty much said that all unbelievers should be killed. And the Catholic God, well I never believed in a god who hides pedophiles.
So, which god will your program be helping to research? What's your definition of godly love? You don't have one? Well I guess you better get one because Templeton wants you to have one. That's why they exist. Again, they want to establish a new interdisciplinary science of Godly Love. And you're god's instrument in this holy purpose Mr. Paulson. And so is Tippett.
So anyway, it's true that I don't have a Nobel prize like Harry Kroto. I've not spent my life teaching children and adults about science like Richard Dawkins. I don't have a Ph.D. like P.Z. Myers. But since you don't have this background either, I suppose anything is up for grabs, right? What do you know of this complex sciencey-stuff? It's too complex to sift through, so you may as well present "all viewpoints" and let the listeners decide. Yep, that's the right course for you and the University of Wisconsin through you.
>Our approach is to feature many competing ideas
>- and to let listeners decide on their own views.
Templeton has a very specific agenda. Your claims of not having the same agenda don't ring true, since you're one of their media darlings (as per your presence on one of their websites), and since their clear aim is to confuse and obfuscate, as per Harris, Myers, Dawkins, Kroto, Dennett, Grayling, and others. But I'm sure your journalistic credentials trump the life work of all these men. What do they know? They're just possessors of that confusing knowledge known as "science," and like the Foundation wants you to say, science doesn't know everything.
Based on what I've heard on your show you are verging on having competing theories about what causes disease. Is it viruses & bacteria & DNA replication defects, or is it demons. Really from a few years of hearing your programs this is my honest general impression of how you present things.
So, I guess you could rightly ask, as a journalist "we'll let our listeners decide. We just present what's out there."
Why are children born with birth defects? Is it because their parents are evil, or because of what science shows?
Does muscle tension testing show why people have the problems they do? Since science doesn't know everything, and is only one way of knowing, I guess we can just present "both sides" and let our listeners decide.
And even within today's culture there are a bunch of people who still believe most if not all diseases results from states of the mind, and that the only way to cure whatever ails us is via positive thinking. There's very detailed books on the issue, and there's people much younger than I who're keyed into this whole bunch of balderdash.
Your indirect partner, NPR, regularly assumes that there are always two equally valid sides to all issues. But that's basically and fundamentally a lie.
You need to realize that with the advent of the Reformation & the Enlightenment, science showed that it was a much better method of truth finding than religion. In the past religion claimed to describe all aspects of physical reality. But as science has shown how it accurately describes point after point, the gods religion held on to reasonably described less and less.
So, your interviewing of the witch doctor on one hand, and the neuroscientist on the other (for journalistic balance of course), really doesn't do justice to how the history of science & religion has played out. And you cannot expect lay people, your listeners, in all cases, to separate which method of truth finding happens to be more accurate, if you yourself, in your coverage, ignore what the history of science & religion shows. You are lying by omission, and lying by purposefully choosing mis-weighted opinions so as to pretend that it's either too confusing to say, or that science can't find the answer - which is what Templeton WANTS you to say.
Templeton's involvement in this muddies the waters. They will draw you into a conflation and a muddying of the value of science.
They have a history of funding science which fits their religious purpose. And, when they present advertisements in major publications, their ads are rather like a cleaver game of deceit. Yes, they'll fund a given research program and "not interfere." But then they'll lump the results in with other studies that "show something different" - all as a means of confusing the issue, which is their main goal. All Templeton doors lead to one conclusion in their game: that science is either confusing, or that science supports the concept of there being a god.
Here's Harris's quote again about Templeton:
"The general effect of the page is to communicate the inadequacy of evolutionary theory and the perpetual incompleteness of science-and to encourage readers to draw the further the inference that one needs religion/faith to get all the way home to the Truth. It is an especially nice touch that the one unequivocal 'Yes' comes from the journalist Robert Wright, who has become a committed apologist for religion. (Leave it to Francis Collins to deliver the eminently reasonable, 'Not entirely.') Thus, whichever door one opens in this fun house of obfuscation, one finds a message that is comforting to religion. An earlier ad entitled 'Does the Universe Have a Purpose?' played the same game with a carefully picked sample of respondents. Out of 12 responses, only two were direct answers of 'No.' Glancing at the ad, one could only conclude that atheism must be a minority opinion in science. These ads amount to religious propaganda, pure and simple..."
Among several leading scientists, Templeton already has a bad reputation. And they are either directly or indirectly influencing your program in negative ways. This is not the first time I've noticed problems with your relativist approach to science & the physical world.
Just because science is "confusing and hard," doesn't mean it's still not a better method of truth finding than the mystical world view.
There are not "many ways of knowing," regarding chemistry & physics, and regarding other areas of inquiry about the nature of reality. Templeton WANTS you to conflate and muddy the issue. But when they use the word "god" and "spirituality" as they bring you under their umbrella as their media darling, you need to be honest with your listeners and state exactly which god, which religion, which spirituality you and they are talking about. If you don't know, then you pretty much have no right to even mention these issues in the first place.
Sincerely,
Jonathan
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