PW: Dyson Wins Templeton

Freeman Dyson, a physicist, mathematician and author, was named the winner of the 2000 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion at a press conference at the United Nations last week. Founded in 1972 by pioneering global investor Sir John Templeton, the Templeton Prize is accompanied by a $964,000 cash award, one of the largest intellectual prizes in the world.

A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., Dyson's most recent book is The Sun, the Genome and the Internet (Oxford Univ., 1999).

"The great question of our time is how to make sure that the continuing scientific revolution brings benefits to everybody," Dyson said in a statement at the news conference. "Science and religion should work together to abolish the gross inequalities that prevail in the modern world."

Past winners of the Templeton Prize include Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.