TV or not TV?

I attended the Healing powers of the mind? conference the other day, hosted by Stephen Law, which featured three fascinating talks on different sorts of healing, and a presentation by Andy Lewis, of Quackometer fame, on Anthroposophy and Spiritual Science. The story he told was intriguing, and links in with some of the things I said in my last blog. All that I've written here springs from Andy's talk, so a big h/t to him.

In a healthy functioning democracy, 'experiments of living', as Mill put it, can contribute to our basic freedoms. So it's in all our interests to allow a plurality of beliefs and not to police thought. However, it's also important that folk declare their interests, so we can see how their prescriptions and proscriptions in the public sphere are anchored. Without that transparency, we might disagree with their ultimate, invisible, goals, and this should make us doubt their immediate, visible, goals, even if those seem innocuous.

Consider the recent spate of articles prompted by Dr. Aric Sigman's piece in a BMJ journal calling for government restrictions on screen time for youngsters. Here's the Guardian:

Doctors and government health officials should set limits, as they do for alcohol, on the amount of time children spend watching screens – and under-threes should be kept away from the television altogether, according to a paper in an influential medical journal published on Tuesday.

It's not a paper, actually, but a leading article. And here's the BBC uncritically relaying Sigman's message:

Dr Sigman cites from a string of published studies suggesting links between prolonged screen time and conditions such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
But he suggests the effects go further than those simply associated with being sedentary for long periods.
He says prolonged screen time can lead to reductions in attention span because of its effects on the brain chemical dopamine.

All very worrying, and just the sort of prejudicial view of television that appeals to some parents. The kids should be out the house, getting some fresh air! But it's difficult to see how television watching could be so much different to book reading in its effect on youngsters, and I doubt those same parents would have the same prejudice against books. But, I think we certainly should consider such an illiberal measure if serious harm could be shown to come from simply interacting with a screen, rather than print. But, as Ben Goldacre has pointed out, Dr Sigman has form for distorting the scientific evidence:

Dr Sigman’s case is that social networking leads to loneliness, and loneliness leads to biological harm (he doesn’t mention cancer specifically, incidentally). I didn’t get near the second half of his argument, though: because he was so spectacularly misleading on the first that it became irrelevant.

Then Goldacre explains that Sigman has cherry-picked the evidence to support his contentions. So what gives?

Sigman previously produced a report on The Benefits and Mechanisms Associated with a Craft - Based Curriculum, criticising TV use, in conjunction with the Ruskin Mill Educational Trust. The Ruskin Mill Educational Trust is...

Inspired by the ideals of William Morris, John Ruskin and Rudolf Steiner, the Trust has since developed a unique and brilliantly successful approach to problems of social exclusion, economic decline and environmental degradation. Its model has been acclaimed by stakeholders ranging from Ofsted and CSCI to HRH the Prince of Wales.

Prince Charles, eh? Sounds as if it has the establishment stamp of approval. I'm not really familiar with Rudolf Steiner; I've been aware of Steiner Waldorf schools, but just thought they were hippy-ish outfits, with unconventional views. No harm in that, and what I knew of their ideas sounded healthily earthy.

Rudolf Steiner was the founder of Anthroposophy, a  world view he developed out of his involvement with Theosophy. Anthroposophy (literally 'wisdom of the human being'), contrary to my view of Steiner schools, sounds less hippy-ish and more 'new world order'! For example, the Steiner view of human beings is decidedly spiritual:

Steiner believed that humans pass between stages of existence, incarnating into an earthly body, living a life, leaving the body behind and entering into the spiritual worlds before returning to be born again into a new life on earth. In earthly life, the individuality or ego awakens to self-consciousness through its experience of its reflection in the deeds and suffering of a physical body.

Because of this unscientific belief, the more persisting spirit of a person takes priority over the physical body, so the priority of Steiner schools is to develop this imaginary spirit:

The anthroposophical view of child development forms the philosophical basis for the educational theory, methodology of teaching and curriculum. Anthroposophy includes the belief that humans possess an innate spirit which, having passed through previous lives, in the current life works to fulfill a chosen purpose in a karmically determined environment. After death, the spiritual individuality returns to the spirit world where it will prepare for a future reincarnation.[69] Waldorf pedagogy views the teacher as having "a sacred task in helping each child's soul and spirit grow".

This can be done through a particular form of artistic expression:

At my school, we were taught to produce misty watercolor paintings with no straight lines or clear definitions. This was wet-on-wet watercoloring (wet brushes spreading watery paint over wet paper), a technique that effectively prevents a child from creating recognizable images of the real world, especially when only large, wide brushes are used. There was certainly something otherworldly about the images we created, bearing no resemblance to ordinary physical reality. Our paintings were in effect talismanic representations of the spirit realm — rich in color but devoid of harsh lines and clear-cut forms.

...and through Eurythmy:

All looks like fun. But some ideas are more controversial. Anthroposophy appears rooted in a a racial view of the world. Perhaps this is unsurprising, since Steiner lived at a time when people were embedded in a deeply racist world. But if this element was based on a flawed understanding of human nature, I think we are entitled to question the rest of its rather implausible view of human nature. And we cannot know if racism is still inherent in the philosophy, as this piece points out:

What must be stressed is that an adherence to Anthroposophy and aspects of this pedagogy can lead teachers to make decisions about individual children based on race and disability, which many people would consider to be outright discrimination.

The Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship have a tiny disclaimer on their website stating:

We also reject any racism stated or implied in any of Rudolf Steiner's speeches and writings. 

Concerns have been raised about Steiner-Waldorf schools discouraging vaccination, because of their advocacy of alternative medicine:

A story in the London Times (March 6, 2002) by Alan Hall traces these practices to the Waldorf School, “which actively encourages people not to have their children vaccinated. Now we have an epidemic.” The Waldorf School is described as “a holistic teaching centre based on the methods of the late Dr. Rudolf Steiner and is one of several in Germany that promotes alternative medicine.” Parents also received anti-MMR letters from activists “advising them not to vaccinate their children.”
In the United States, a Waldorf School is among those schools in Boulder, Colorado where children are not receiving their pertussis and other immunization — with fatal consequences both for those children and their younger siblings who have not yet been vaccinated. A letter to the Lancet (August 24, 2002) indicates that in the United Kingdom in a twelve-month period, “eight infants of preimmunization age have required extracorporeal support for intractable cardiorespiratory failure due to Bordetella pertussis infection.” Five of them died “despite extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support, and one survivor has substantial neurological disability.” Although the reported cases indicate infection by members of the same household, parents with infants who have not yet received their full complement of vaccinations might be wise to inquire of their New Age/alternative medicine friends whether their children have been immunized before allowing them to come over and visit.

Famously, they don't teach reading and writing in the first seven years, and sometimes beyond. A number of studies have shown that this does not seem to affect long term reading and writing abilities, so perhaps we should be relaxed about this. Maybe, but it's concerning that the reasons for these beliefs are rooted in an arbitrary and unscientific view of the human animal rather than careful pedagogical research. In fact, a whole raft of studies appear to show benefits to the child from the Steiner-Waldorf approach - consider those listed on Wikipedia. It's not clear to me how these studies adjust for circumstances, but I'm no educational researcher, so I must take these at face value. It certainly explains how these establishments become popular among parents.

And Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, has now enabled State funding of these schools, as he promised when he was only shadow children's minister:

Shadow children's secretary Michael Gove today gave his backing to an expansion of state funding for Montessori and Steiner schools, which aim to educate "the whole child" instead of focusing on the three Rs.

But not all parents and pupils view Steiner-Waldorf so rosily. There are accusations that they think that bullying is karmic retribution:

One of the more persistent complaints levelled at Steiner schools by disenchanted former pupils/parent is not only that bullying is common, if not rife, but, more disturbingly, that these schools do almost nothing to deal with this particular problem when it arises. Now, in itself, that’s not that uncommon an allegation in mainstream state education but what you certainly won’t come across in the state sector, but will frequently encounter when reading criticism of Steiner schools put forward by former pupils/parent, id the allegation that these schools, and teachers treat bullying as form of karmic ‘payback’ for misdemeanours committed in a previous incarnation, a practice that elevates blaming the victim to heights unimaginable even in the more vicious element of the sin-obsessed Catholic Church.

The piece by the Ministry of Truth quotes many more pupils and parents who have concerns about Steiner-Waldorf, from the website waldorfcritics.org, many of which stem from the frankly bizarre beliefs in Anthroposophy. And this is really my concern: would parents be so enthusiastic about these schools if they realised exactly the principles on which they are based? I suspect many would not be.

Now, many might still be very happy with it, of course, and that is fine. But where is the transparency?

Here is the Brighton Steiner School Curriculum:

All Steiner schools follow the comprehensive and distinctive Steiner Curriculum. This international education system is designed to mirror a child's development and nurture social and creative abilities alongside academic achievement. A broad range of subjects is included, each introduced at an age-appropriate time and taught in an interdisciplinary way. In the Steiner Curriculum, the teaching of arts, crafts, drama, music and languages, in which all children participate, is woven in alongside core subjects.

Here is what St. Pauls's Steiner School says:

Steiner’s philosophical work, known as anthroposophy, is not taught as part of the curriculum, but underpins the vision for the education, which seeks to nurture equally the child and later young person’s capacities of thinking, feeling and volition, as well as fostering a sense of respect. At the centre of the school’s activities is a set of principles that recognises the integrated nature of mind, body and spirit set in a social or cultural context. These principles encourage teachers to use their own skills and creativity, and accept each individual’s capacity to achieve and exercise moral autonomy.

And the Bristol Steiner School:

Steiner education embodies a practical, active and artistic approach to learning.
The teachers work with the children's three roots of personality: thinking, feeling and willing.
From Kindergarten through to early adulthood the education fosters these three roots of personality with a curriculum that brings a wide variety of subjects and experiences appropriate to the different age groups.

The York Steiner School:

Our curriculum is based on Steiner’s views and teachings on child development.  It works to educate the whole child, their head, heart and hands and not just their intellect. Please click on the curriculum above to see how our subjects are integrated to give a holistic education from the beginning of class one through to the end of class eight. As with good food, the children love the nourishment that the teachers prepare for them in their own ways, from Steiner’s original educational recipes.

It's all so anodyne and appealing, with no mention of Steiner's actual beliefs about human nature, reflected here in comments made by Eugenie Scott, of the National Centre for Science Education in the States:

But if schools follow Steiner’s views on science, education will suffer. Steiner believed that materialism was insufficient for the understanding of nature. He believed that science needs to “go beyond” the empirical and consider vitalistic, unobservable forces, a perspective also common in 20th century New Age healing approaches. Anthroposophical medicine, similar to homeopathy but even less scientific, claims that disease is caused only secondarily by malfunctions of chemistry and biology, and primarily by a disturbance of the “vital essence.” Anatomy and physiology a la Steiner are unrecognizable by modern scientists: the heart does not pump blood; there are 12 senses (“touch, life, movement, equilibrium, warmth, smell,” etc.) corresponding to signs of the zodiac; there is a “rhythmic” system that mediates between the “nerve-sense” and “metabolic-muscular” systems. Physics and chemistry are just as bad: the “elements” are earth, air, fire, and water. The four “kingdoms of nature” are mineral, plant, animal and man. Color is said to be the result of the conflict of light and darkness. Typical geological stages are Post-Atlantis, Atlantis, Mid-Lemuria, and Lemuria.

...and so on. These principles are nonsense, and parents should be made aware of them. If they still want to send their children to such establishments, then they are, of course, free to do so.

But that shouldn't be at taxpayers' expense. Is it right that schools that are underpinned with such a curious and unscientific philosophy should be funded by the taxpayer? I think not, but sadly that is the position we are in, now that Gove has introduced 'free schools'. As Francis Gilbert of Local Schools Network said in 2011:

The pressure on the government to give these schools state funding is intense. Their chief UK spokesperson for Steiner schools, writer Emma Craigie, author of Chocolate Cake With Hitler, is the sister of Tory MP, Jacob Rees Mogg, and prominent Tory Annunziatta Rees-Mogg. The whole family, headed by their father, William Rees-Mogg, former editor of the Times, are friendly with Michael Gove. Emma Craigie is on the left of the photograph here:

Gove with Annunziatta Rees-Mogg (middle) and Emma Craigie (left)

So what a surprise to find that Steiner schools are now receiving state funding:

The Steiner Academy Hereford, the first state-funded Steiner school, teaches science from a curriculum book sceptical of evolution and gives homeopathy to students, the British Humanist Association (BHA) can reveal. The revelations come as a result of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests submitted to the school by the BHA and other campaigners. The news comes the same week as Frome Steiner School opens as the second state-funded Steiner school and the first Steiner Free School, and not long after Steiner Academy Exeter was 'pre-approved' to open as a Free School from 2013. The Exeter Academy is proposed by a team originating from Exeter Steiner School, a private school which has used the same curriculum book as Hereford and has also run a homeopathy clinic for students. The BHA has expressed concern about the quality of science education in the schools and the promotion of unevidenced medicines to students.

Much more light needs to be thrown on this very dubious initiative.

For more, read Andy Lewis.

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Source of Faith

I've previously discussed John Locke's irrationality argument against religious persecution: that it's irrational to persecute non-believers because it's simply not possible to make people believe something they think is untrue. Jeremy Waldron successfully counters this by pointing out that beliefs can be affected indirectly, by, for example, restricting a person's access to material:

A man may be compelled to learn a catechism on pain of death or to read the gospels every day to avoid discrimination.The effect of such threats and such discrimination may be to increase the number of people who eventually end up believing the orthodox faith. Since coercion may therefore be applied to religious ends by this indirect means, it can no longer be condemned as in all circumstances irrational.

By the same token, religious indoctrination can be achieved (without such threats!) through childhood education; this is plain when we consider how religious belief varies according to geography. Climate is not the causative factor, but indoctrination is; simply teaching that the prevailing faith is true. From birth, what we believe grows, bottom up, through interaction with our environment, and with those we mix, and with those who teach us. These foundational beliefs are difficult, sometimes impossible, maybe, to unpick.

Churches and the religious understand this, so expend much effort on early years education to ensure a supply of adult tithers in the future. One such initiative is Test of Faith. This is run by the Faraday Institute of Science and Religion, an institute that is based, sadly, at St Edmund's College, Cambridge. No-one will be surprised to hear, given its pre-occupation with the reconciliation of science and faith, that it is Templeton funded.

It's important to appreciate that this is not some secular approach to education, looking to make space for all faiths and none in our education systems; it specifically pushes Christianity. An illustration of this has just been released by them: a homeschoolers' course in Science and Christianity which 'aims to equip US-based homeschooled high school (and advanced junior high) students to think clearly and biblically about science and faith'. Here's the complete course.

Check out the graphic for chapter 1:

It starts with the old canard that because some scientists have faith, there is therefore no conflict between science and faith. In fact, it says, any conflict is a result of Victorian scientists with an anti-clerical bent! This is slack. Certainly the so-called 'conflict thesis' originated with Draper and co. in the nineteenth century, but to say that any modern day media interest is mainly stirred up by him and his fellows is bizarre.

Here's a graphic for chapter 2:

This is promising, in that it cautions against the God of the Gaps argument, but only applies this to primary explanations; and it does this not because God of the Gaps is just a bad argument, which it is, but because it's not a good apologetic tactic. It then brazenly uses a God of the Gaps argument for the ultimate explanation.

A discussion and questions section follows:

They ask 'How do I know what I know?' and amongst the answers they slip in 'Divine revelation (the Bible)'. There is no evidence that anyone has ever had a divine revelation, and there is no evidence that the Bible, as opposed to the Koran, or the book of Mormon, is divinely revealed; quite the opposite, in fact.

This is the sort of misinformation that Jeremy Waldron might point to if he wanted to justify his counter argument to Locke. Templeton want kids to accept that the Bible tells the truth. There's no mention of the myriad holy texts that claim similar, but contradictory, 'facts' to those that the Bible claims.

These three propositions are not equivalent. The first two are supported by the weight of facts and the last one isn't. But the course material wants to put them on a level footing. This really isn't a fair thing to do to kids, particularly home-schooled ones who are already more closeted than normally-schooled kids.

There's lots more of the same; on evolution, for example, they say:

Some evolutionary biologists say that the world is without design or purpose. They think that it came into being through a meaningless process, ruled by random chance.

Evolutionary biologists aren't the ones to ask about the origin of the world, so the implication here is that they think that evolution by natural selection is ruled by random chance, which is the opposite of the truth. This, in fact, is a standard creationist meme.

It's disappointing to me that this poorly thought out apologia is being marketed to US home-schoolers by an organisation based at a major British university. 

Francis Spufford, in the Guardian and elsewhere, has tried to defend an emotional, rather than a fact-based, faith: 

The point is that from outside, belief looks like a series of ideas about the nature of the universe for which a truth-claim is being made, a set of propositions that you sign up to; and when actual believers don't talk about their belief in this way, it looks like slipperiness, like a maddening evasion of the issue. If I say that, from inside, it makes much more sense to talk about belief as a characteristic set of feelings, or even as a habit, you will conclude that I am trying to wriggle out, or just possibly that I am not even interested in whether the crap I talk is true. I do, as a matter of fact, think that it is. I am a fairly orthodox Christian. Every Sunday I say and do my best to mean the whole of the Creed, which is a series of propositions. But it is still a mistake to suppose that it is assent to the propositions that makes you a believer. It is the feelings that are primary. I assent to the ideas because I have the feelings; I don't have the feelings because I've assented to the ideas.

"I assent to the ideas because I have the feelings". But where do the ideas come from in the first place, for the feelings to attach to? What has planted the seed? Divine revelation, or religiously-motivated schooling? Anyone, from anywhere, could say the same thing, in defence of a faith that contradicts Spufford's. What should someone 'from outside' conclude from that? Surely that the ideas are arbitrary and mostly not true, even if they appeal to those who, like Spufford, let their feelings ride roughshod over precautionary principles.

So Spufford ignores the overwhelming amount of disinformation to which we are all subjected as we grow up in these theistic societies, of which the Test of Faith course is just a drop in the well-funded ocean. Do we have an antidote to this? Yes, to a degree; we've discovered a method that provides some objectivity. A method that sees feelings as a potentially corrupting influence on its conclusions, not a reason to affirm them. 

The Test of Faith course and Spufford's article are more evidence of the incompatibility of science and religion.

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Islamic Templeton?

Oddly enough, shortly after I write a piece pointing out that Templeton is just an organisation that promotes Christianity, not 'science and religion', they announce an initiative to encourage research into science and religion that includes other religions:

As productive as it has been, we at the John Templeton Foundation believe the science-religion dialogue has yet to investigate the full range of possibilities. In particular, it has largely been carried out from a perspective that is theistic (usually Christian), Western, methodologically focused, concerned primarily with the physical sciences, and has often been pitched at an introductory level. We believe that there is value in more work, particularly advanced research, which engages other scientific fields, more of the world’s religions, a wider spectrum of cultural foundations, and a greater breadth of specific topics.

Interesting that there is an admission that the science and religion meme they've pushed has indeed been Christian. I'm sure it had everything to do with my article! Previously there was this million dollar study on Islam and science, but I can't find any fruit for all that cash.

It will be interesting how far they will go with this, particularly with regard to Islam. I don't see that Islam is any less antithetical to science than Christianity, so there really is nothing different about its relation with science - I mean, they're similarly bad for scientific advancement because they promote ways of knowing objective truth that are inscrutable. But, any reconciliation of Islam with science would undermine the efforts that Christians regularly make to establish that Christianity is peculiar in its encouragement of science. It's good to see Ronald Numbers in a lecture for the Templeton funded Faraday Institute say:

...although Christians, as I’ve already pointed out, often contributed and made crucial contributions to the growth of science in the 16th, 17th and later centuries, I think it’s a conceit for Christians to argue that only Christianity could have produced science as we know it today.

However, Peter Harrison, in another Faraday lecture, on The Royal Society, argues for a social legitimacy for science among the religious scientists who founded it:

Whereas we often tend to think of religious influence manifesting itself unhelpfully in the content of scientific ideas, far more important for the period in question is the manner in which religion lent social legitimacy to scientific activities and institutions, provided motivations for key individuals in those institutions and, not least, informed their goals and methods. When we pose these kinds of questions, the importance of religion in the establishment of the Royal Society and in the public justification of its activities seems undeniable. 

He goes on to argue against Harry Kroto's views that "religious commitment, and certainly the clerical vocation, is necessarily inconsistent with ‘the scientific mindset’ and ‘intellectual integrity’". But while Harrison draws on much evidence for how religious people participated in the formation of The Royal Society, and how some of the ideas that sprang somewhat from their religious views informed their scientific approach, and allowed them to work at their science, he does not consider the basic religious proposition that is incompatible with science: that there is something objectively true that must be paramount to one's study of the universe. Surely everyone realises that even the most hardened dogmatist can 'do science' at some level, and most of the time this will not make the slightest difference. This still makes it incompatible in some way to free enquiry. It would be like saying that a football Premiership season is compatible with free competition if all teams competed against each other on an even footing throughout the season, but at the end Manchester United were declared the winners regardless of their standing (OK, sometimes it seems like that happens anyway). What is more likely, one can conclude, is that something mitigated the chilling effects of the religious approach, and with that in mind things look very different for science and religion.

Further, if Harrison's view are to be taken seriously, then presumably he must agree that Islam did not offer social legitimacy for science in the same way (since we're trying to figure out why science sprung up when and where it did, after all), in which case the approach that provided the encouragement for science is independent of religion. Furthermore, we can point out that secular approaches can provide social legitimacy for science too, so, all in all, these arguments for science and religion stand up to very little scrutiny. They go together like oil and water.

So a series of Templeton funded studies on how science and different religions are compatible, or not, would be a worthwhile project and may break the Christian hold on the science and religion meme. They can either hold to the idea that Christianity is pre-eminent and true, or let go and allow that any religion may be true, and Christianity therefore holds no special flame for truth. We shall see.

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Test of Science

Massimo Pigliucci has declined funding from The Templeton Foundation, a decision I applaud, and would urge any academic to follow. The reason he cites is:

...I simply don’t like having my name associated with right wing and/or libertarian organizations like the JTF, the American Enterprise Institute or the Institute for American Values.

Fair enough, and while surely right wing organisations have every right to operate as they see fit, within the law, I think the JTF may be too right wing for comfort. Sunny Bains conducted a study of its activities and noted:

For instance, the Templeton Freedom Awards are administered by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, a group that is perhaps most notable for its opposition to taking action against climate change and for being a defender of the tobacco industry that has traditionally given them funding.

Certainly tobacco and climate change are the typical bugbears of right wingers, but from what I've seen of Templeton, Bain's conclusion is a more disturbing aspect of the JTF:

Its agenda can at best be called unclear. At worst, its agenda is pro-religion and anti-science.

Further she says:

I call on the scientific community to boycott Templeton Foundation research funding and events. If that is too much to ask, I suggest that all those accepting Foundation funding, through whatever route, investigate the Foundation and the other activities that it funds, and to put on the record what they think about that work.

and,

Of course, if the Templeton Foundation is benign and open-minded, as their advertising claims, then this dissent should not cause anyone to lose their funding. On the other hand if, as I suspect, the Foundation is more interested in promoting pro-religious activities than doing real science, then some people may find that their grants are not renewed when the time comes.

Well done to Pigliucci for carrying out his research, but my view is that Templeton are aiming to further the meme of science and religion so as to undermine the proper conduct of science to protect Christianity from criticism. What I mean by this is that Templeton want the Christian presuppositions to be the norm when science is conducted. For science to be untainted, it needs to follow the evidence, wherever it leads. The Christian project makes that impossible, in principle, since a dogmatic belief in the truth of Christ must always trump science, for a believer.

I've written a few times about the Templeton Foundation before, noting the corrupting effect it may well have on the proper conduct of science, and indeed, perhaps, aims to have. For example, here's a 'paper' from the The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion (note the science and religion), a Templeton funded organisation. It's called Human genomics and the Image of God, by Graeme Finlay. In the summary at the very start, it says:

Our DNA tells a story that describes our biological origins during mammalian evolution, but that is not sufficient to account for our origins as persons. We are formed as persons only as we hear and assimilate stories transmitted in our families and communities. Christians believe that the story that is essential to the development of a fulfilled humanity is that which relates God’s redeeming action in Jesus Christ.

What Christians believe is wholly irrelevant to the science of DNA. Now, by all means, Finlay is welcome to  publish papers reconciling with science whatever odd beliefs he has, but to publish such a paper under the auspices of a reputable sounding organisation (with science in its title, don't forget), based at one of the leading universities in the world is calculated to undermine the scientific project. Other dubious papers, in the scientific sense, are also listed.

A recent news bulletin from Templeton pointed me to their Test of FAITH project. Its aim is to supply "accessible materials on science and Christianity for everyone who is interested in these issues". They have sections for youthworkers, schools and kids (a work in progress at time of writing). They have produced a film which "explores the relationship between science and religion, and the generally perceived idea that they are in conflict. Scientist believers discuss how they fit their faith and professional science work together." There is a sample lesson plan for teachers, with session one entitled The myth of conflict. The myth? Oh, really? Under a section discussing evil and suffering, they suggest the teacher:

Point out that science specialises in knowledge, but wisdom tends to be associated with religious traditions. They could use Einstein’s quotation, ‘Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.’

References are made to the good that science has done for us, but apparently only as an excuse to also point out the bad things it has enabled. It's plain that the subtext of the whole project is not science-friendly, but Christian-centric.

Now it may be that there are areas of reality immune to scientific investigation, but that doesn't allow us to claim a compatibility between religion and science. Every claim that religion has made that science can test has been found to be wrong. Religion has no track record of successful epistemology; in fact, since competing religions come to different conclusions, we can be confident that they are more wrong than right, and possibly completely wrong.

More to the point, Templeton isn't pursuing a way to reconcile science and religion, but a way to reconcile science and Christianity. Under the heading Schools & Youth - UK - Test of FAITH: Live!, we find:

This is an exciting new youth and schools initiative led by Chip Kendall, former lead singer of thebandwithnoname, and DJ Galactus Jack. Events include music, video, live science experiments and a short talk from a scientist. If you are interested in hosting Test of FAITH: Live! at your school or youth event, please contact us for details.

Spreading the Christian message to schools - the promo makes it very obvious this is an evangelical operation:

The Chip Kendall Band and Test of Faith: LIVE! in Caithness Promo from Far North Film on Vimeo.

"It's a great way of providing a vehicle for the gospel for people to engage with". That's pretty up front. I must say it disturbs me that these people are visiting schools spreading this unscientific message under the guise of science. I have only found evidence of two school visits though, shown above, to Wick and Thurso High Schools.

This is outside of school time, but is this really an appropriate use of state schools? What about their obligations to religious diversity? These are supposed to be non-denominational schools. The distribution of lesson plans preaching a Christian message, and rock musicians and scientist believers spreading a science and Christian message is just not what I expect our schools to be used for.

Jerry Coyne has posted a quote from physicist Robert L. Park about Templeton:

Not everyone was happy about the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) selling its soul to Templeton. Why had the most important scientific organization in America, perhaps in the world, allowed the voice of antiscience to assume the guise of a dialog between science and religion?

I agree that Templeton are simply promoting science and religion to promote their antiscience voice, as Park says,and I think the evidence above shows that.

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