Biologist, 89, Wins Religious Progress Award

An 89-year-old British marine biologist who believes that religious faith plays a key role in human evolution has won the $186,000 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.

Sir Alistair Hardy, who was knighted in 1957 for his research in marine biology, was unable to travel to New York for the announcement, but said by telephone from his home in Oxford, England, this week that he would use the money to expand his research.

“I am a Darwinian and the whole point of my life has been to reconcile Darwin’s theory of evolution with the religious side of man. We have got to bring these together,” he said.

Hardy is the 13th person and the third scientist to win the Templeton award, which was established in 1973 by investment counselor John M. Templeton “to call attention to a variety of persons who have found new ways to increase man’s love of God or man’s understanding of God.”

The first winner of the award was Mother Teresa of Calcutta, in 1973. Other recipients have included evangelist Billy Graham and exiled Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

In announcing the latest winner, Templeton said Hardy was a pioneer “among the literally thousands of natural scientists engaged in pursuing the knowledge of God.”

Hardy said, “I regard my religious research as part of my biology. I think they are linked, but I know that is not what most of my scientific colleagues believe.”

He described himself as “deeply religious” and “a Christian but not of any particular church, although I was born into the Church of England.”