What Comes Next_
Thoughts on AI, predictive text, technological metaphors, and the string of thought.
🎓New Project to Extend the Digital Reach of Classical Liberal Ideas
Explore how a new project is revolutionizing PPE education with cutting-edge digital content on core topics like market failure and public choice.
🗣️The Art of Meaningful Conversations
Pushing the brain beyond its evolutionary constraints, one conversation at a time.
📚How Does Religious Participation Affect Human Flourishing?
New research to evaluate long-term links between spiritual practice and physical, mental and social well-being
🙏The Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology of Christian Trust in God
Historical perspective meets cutting-edge practice in new investigations into a central but little-understood aspect of religious life
🤲Nudging Empathy
New interventions may help people open up when confronted with others’ needs
❤️A Scientific Approach to Living in Love
Kindling new connections in the study of friendship, romance, and affection
🧠Creativity and Cooperation in the Dynamics of the Lexicon - from Lexis to Logos
A word-by-word look at how we learn languages — and how we may change them in the process
🌌Consolidation of Fine-Tuning
Building a field guide to ‘fine tuning’ across disciplines.
🌟Motivational Consequences of Sanctifying Difficult Experiences
From the hero’s journey to the walk-a-thon, the idea that suffering builds character may be a powerful tool for unlocking achievement.
🔭Opportunity M - The Fast Track to Find Other Inhabited Worlds
Deploying new tools in the search for planets capable of harboring life
🏰The King and the Cathedral
Celebrating King Abdullah II’s call for Muslims — and others — to enact their love of God and neighbor
🧬Molecular insights into historical constraints on evolution
Replaying evolution’s early days in a lab — with resurrected, billion-year-old genes
🧠Automated Self-Control - The Neuropsychology of Developing Good Habits
In praise of mindlessness
🤔Free Will, Moral Responsibility, Divine Providence, and Human Relationships with God
Who gets to play the blame game?
📜The Long Tale of ‘Brother John’
A monk, an umbrella, an essay — and many changed lives
🤝Need-based transfers and the origins of human cooperation
Giving without expecting repayment is not only more common than previously thought, it may also be more crucial for cultures to survive and flourish
🏺Consciousness and creativity in the Neolithic at Çatalhöyük, Turkey
Searching one of the world’s oldest settlements for clues about the development of human cognition
🌾The Foundations of Ancient American Indian Religion and Civilization at Cahokia’s Emerald Shrine
A remote religious site offers clues about the birth of a unique North American metropolis
🕊️The Case of “Secret Society” Religions
Claiming supernatural power for their members and wielding lasting economic influence, secret societies may represent a key stage in human institution-building
🧪Chemistry to Life
Harnessing the power of paradox to unravel how the first forms of life may have developed.
🧠Using Big Data to Quantify and Cultivate Genius
Far from being solo achievers acknowledged for pure achievement, geniuses may be largely the products of their networks.
🔬Special Issue and Sections in ‘The New Atlantis’ Dedicated to Big Questions
Slowing down the discourse on the meanings of today’s fast-paced technological and scientific change.
🤔The Virtue of Curiosity
A quartet of researchers are using computer games and brain scans to measure — and manipulate — our desire to know.
🤔Does Self-Giving Love Require an Evolutionary World? Evolutionary Theodicy in Light of the Mystical Tradition
A harsh natural world may be a necessary condition for the practice of sacrificial love
🤔The Problem of Evil and Experimental Philosophy of Religion
What does it take for the idea of God to become philosophically untenable? It may depend on who you ask.
🕍Worship - A Jewish Philosophical Investigation
Practiced by billions of people but largely neglected by philosophers and social scientists, worship is ripe for a new wave of interdisciplinary study
🔬How do novel cell types arise in evolution?
A new theory offers insight into an evolutionary puzzle
🎲The Foundations of Fine-Tuning
Philosophy, physics, and the implications of an unlikely universe
🧠The neurostimulation of belief
Using brain stimulation to test the relationship between intuition and religious belief
🌐Creating a Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
Forming connections and framing grand questions on the links between evolutionary inheritance and cultural change
🤔Theologically-Engaged Anthropology
Anthropologists are sometimes ill-equipped to interpret the religious motivations of their subjects. A new initiative is trying to change that.
👵Encouraging independence and enterprise for a healthy old age
Demographic shifts and rising costs may soon push a number of long-standing social safety nets into peril. An analysis of healthcare in the U.K. and its neighbors explores the problem — and some potential ways forward.
🕌Developing Religious Leaders with Scientific Awareness
Research fellowships to rebuild bridges between modern science and Islamic thought
🕌Newly-launched Renovatio magazine addresses big questions for Muslim audiences
With articles and events tied to its second issue, Renovatio magazine is hitting its stride
🕍Jewish Philosophical Theology
Looking for new insights about the nature of God in some of Judaism’s oldest sources
🌌String Theory and the Anthropic Universe
Has flawed intuition created false support for the multiverse?
🌌A Fractured Universe – Fundamental Physics, Symmetry and Life
Computer simulations may help tease apart why some aspects of our universe are symmetrical — and some aren’t
🎲Models of Providence - an Abrahamic inquiry
Bridging gaps through an interfaith investigation into the problems and possibilities of randomness
🌌NOVA Wonders
A storied series provides a cutting-edge take on a set of age-old questions
🤔How can we discover the properties of God?
A widely-used philosophical approach to theology may turn out to be less than perfect.
📢FIRE’s Speech, Outreach, Advocacy, and Research Project
Longtime free speech advocates are working to keep the First Amendment relevant — and robustly protected — on college campuses
🌍Freedom Forum Global Expansion
From Oslo to Johannesburg and beyond, writing the next chapter for a storied human rights gathering
🏛️Stanford Religious Liberty Clinic
Discover how Stanford Law School's Religious Liberty Clinic, in partnership with the John Templeton Foundation, pioneers full-time legal education for defending and understanding religious freedoms.
🎓Enhancing Student Purpose with the Middle School Ambassador Program
When testing is not enough…helping students define their purpose
🤝Faith, Politics, and Intellectual Humility
A public symposium on the prospects for civil discussion
🌌New Directions in Philosophy of Cosmology
In the wild world of string theory, quantum gravity, and multiple universes, should the standard scientific methodology still apply?
🤝Surprising Allies
A new book dispels myths about scientists and people of faith
🖖WOW, WHY, HOW?
Post by post, Orbiter is building an online archive of wonder as it explores the big questions of the natural and social sciences
🌱Human Flourishing and Critical Realism in the Social Sciences
Building a network of young scholars to reconnect the social sciences with the big questions of human life and happiness
🌐Purpose
Reviewing six decades of research into the meaning, development, and benefits of purpose in life