Recently, I did a long post describing the substance of the Templeton Cambridge fellowship, and why it is valuable. Fortunately, that's not a tough argument to make. The fact is, journalism (and dialogue) about science and religion are pretty difficult to oppose. Case in point: Last week, here in D.C. (my old, new home), I attended an event at the American Association for the Advancement of Science to reintroduce its Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER), which now has a new infusion of energy and a new director, Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, formerly of NASA and an astrophysicist with a special expertise in the study of exoplanets. Yes, that's right: America's leading scientific society has created a program to foster more dialogue between science and religion--and of course, considers that to be a very good thing. (Note: My understanding is that at present, significant funding of this initiative comes from Templeton.) AAAS CEO Alan Leshner has more to say about DoSER in a recent piece over at Huffington Post entitled, appropriately, "Science, Religion, and Civil Dialogue." As Leshner writes, the idea is to find new ways to bring science and religion into a humble, nonjudgmental dialogue, and break down the barriers between ...