Extropes,
I ran across the across the following article, so forwarding it here.
I don't know if this article or topic came up before on this list.
I didn't know that Dyson was religious. I wonder if he was just
saying some of these things to not offend the givers of this prize?
Amara
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"Dyson Gets Religion Prize"
by Toni Feder
Physics Today
May 2000
page 53
"It's a bit crazy -- I'm doing my best to make sense of it," says
Freeman Dyson, on winning this year's Templeton Prize for Progress in
Religion. It's the second year running that a physicist has won the
prize, which is awarded annually to a `living individual for
outstanding originality in advancing the world's understanding of God
or spirituality.' Founded in 1972 by global investor John Templeton the
prize always outstrips the Nobels financially; this year it's worth
$948,000.
Now an emeritus professor at Princeton's Institute for Advanced
Studies, Dyson is perhaps best known to physicists for synthesizing
into quantum electrodynamics the seemingly conflicting theories of
Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. He's gained
a wider audience among the lay public with his books, beginning in
1979 with _Disturbing the Universe_. His writings, he notes, "have
quite a lot to do with ethics, and to some extent with religion as
well."
The thical issues that most concern Dyson are: getting rid of nuclear
weapons -- "still the most important, but sadly neglected"; making the
Internet accessible to all; and exploiting biotechnology.
In his latest book, _The Sun, the Genome and the Internet_, Dyson
argues that instead of widening the gap between the rich and the poor,
science and technology should be used to close it. Biotechnology "will
have enormous power, to cure diseases, for example. But it can be
abused in all sorts of ways. We have to watch out. It's extremely
important to make medical advances available to everybody," says
Dyson. "Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do
more than provide new toys for the rich. It's a question of social
justice."
"Social justice is something religious people care about," he
continues. "A lot of scientists care about it too. So they might get
together and do something about it." Science and religion are two
windows that look out on the same universe, say Dyson. "There is no
incompatibility. As a scientist, I live with uncertainty all the
time. As a religious person, also. Neither my science nor my religion
is dogmatic."
Unusually for a scientist of his stature, the highest degree Dyson
holds -- not counting more than a dozen honorary doctorates -- is a
bachelor's, from the University of Cambridge. "The PhD is generally a
tremendous waste of time. I'd like ot abolish it," he says, adding
that earning a PhD is worst for people who leave academia. "It's using
up the best years of their lives, so they are middle aged before they
can do anything. I have six kids, and I'm very plesed that there's not
a PhD among them."
As for winning a prize for "progress in religion," says Dyson, "To me,
progress in religion means that religion should become more of a force
for good -- and not a force for evil. In history, it's been both."
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--********************************************************************* Amara Graps | Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik Interplanetary Dust Group | Saupfercheckweg 1 +49-6221-516-543 | 69117 Heidelberg, GERMANY Amara.Graps@mpi-hd.mpg.de * http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/~graps ********************************************************************* "Never fight an inanimate object." - P. J. O'Rourke
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