The few readers of this blog know that I contacted the John Templeton Foundation with the aim to know if they were aware of the differences between “Toward an Open-Minded Science” (TaOMS), displayed at their website, and “Pour une Science sans a priori”(PuSsap) published in Le Monde on February 23, 2006 under the impulse of Jean Staune and the UIP. And in the case they weren’t aware if after taking a look at the french version of the “point of view” they decided that they support it.
My first attempt was via three channels (info@, communications@ scienceandreligion@), expecting that the messages would be dispatched to the adequate persons if the receiver didn’t considered himself competent to reply. Bad idea! Two weeks later I hadn’t any response from JTF, not even a simple receipt saying “OK, your mails is received, we will do the necessary to reply as soon as possible, be patient”. So, I decided to contact real persons directly, without knowing if they were the appropriate recipients for my messages.
Dr Charles Harper kindly replied, and I would like to thank him once more, publicly this time.
At the bottom line the texts (TaOMS and PuSsap) aren’t endorsed by the JTF, the diffusion via their website at the “news” section is just to notify their existence.
It is interesting to remark that the document is under the “Intelligent Design” head title, probably because it make a clear distinction between ID and other philosophical attitudes supporting the hypothesis of a “creative principle”.
I asked permission by Dr Harper to cite parts of our discussion over e-mail, and I’ll post them here if he grant’s it.
[...] “Belief” page, received a prompt response, thanks to Charles Harper I suppose. Previous experience showed that other people wasn’t quite [...]