A major institution supporting the conflation of ‘spirituality’ and science, the Templeton Foundation, has lost its founder. Sir John Templeton is now cooling meat, his mind stilled, his ‘spirit’, whatever the heck that is, missing. This is a sad event, since from all I’ve heard from those who met him, he was a very nice fellow. It’s just too bad that he threw so much money away into a fruitless and pointless endeavor that does nothing but prop up belief in unreality.

Now the question becomes one of the direction the Templeton Foundation will take in the future. I’ve also heard that his son and successor is not such a nice fellow, and leans more towards evangelical Christianity than to spiritual nebulosity.

Next week at this time I’ll be in lovely downtown Atlanta, staying at the Renaissance Atlanta Hotel. If we’re going to have a Pharyngufest, probably the best time would be Saturday, 12 July, and somewhere not too far away from the hotel. Anyone interested? Any locals want to make suggestions for good meeting places? We need something that isn’t too noisy, that serves good refreshments, and offers exemplary Southern hospitality, ’cause that’s what I expect when I go to Georgia. If nothing else, the hotel has two bars, and I suppose we could hit one of those.

If anyone wants to suggest better days, I could probably make it either Sunday the 13th or Tuesday the 15th.

Those words look vaguely familiar. It’s a little odd, especially since I was just working on a major expansion and revision of that essay.

(I’m also curious to see if that title survives translation here.)

Those words look vaguely familiar. It’s a little odd, especially since I was just working on a major expansion and revision of that essay.

(I’m also curious to see if that title survives translation here.)

D.J. Grothe and I tussled again in this week’s Point of Inquiry podcast, in a continuation of last week’s episode.

I’m never this organized, so I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m going to be in Denver on 3-4 July, and we’re actually getting it together to plan a meetup at the RockBottom Restaurant on 16th and Curtis in downtown Denver. I’ll be there around 5ish on Thursday, 3 July, and I’ll leave when you stop buying me beer.

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We have changed the location to Wynkoop Brewing Company. Don’t get lost!

Mark your calendars!

Jeff, the Blue Collar Scientist, has just been diagnosed with liver cancer. Pay him a virtual visit and let him know that we expect him to get well soon and are quite pleased that modern science gives him good prospects for a long, productive, and happy life.

Is it biological or physical? It’s a little unfair, you ought to be able to just click “physics” for everything and get a perfect score, but I managed to get 12 out of 12 by the simple strategy of calling anything interesting biological.

There is a famous statue of a seated Charles Darwin in a strange place in the Natural History Museum in London — it’s tucked into a basement cafeteria. I visited it while I was there, and more unfortunately, Ben Stein posed with it in his awful movie.

It’s been moved!

Now it’s in a much more prominent place on a landing on a central stair, where you can’t miss it if you visit the museum. As you should.

There’s a Wilkins/Myers conversation up on Bloggingheads. The quality of the recording is horrible, and I have to apologize — we did a little experimentation and deviated from the usual bloggingheads recording proocol, and it’s clear now that we shouldn’t have done that. I recommend not watching it, just listen, if you must.