Have You Been Bought?
This was an interesting article about being bribed, by John Horgan, The Templeton Foundation: A Skeptic's Take John Horgan is a reporter, who has either agnostic or athesist views. Nonetheless, he attended a Templeton Foundation sponsored conference, fully paid for.
"A year ago, I faced an ethical dilemma. The John Templeton Foundation was inviting me to be one of the first batch of Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellows in Science and Religion. The 10 fellows were to spend several weeks at the University of Cambridge, listening to scientists and philosophers pontificate on topics related to science and religion. The fellowship not only sounded like fun, it also paid all expenses and threw in an extra $15,000 — a tempting sum for a freelancer, which I was at the time. On the other hand, as an agnostic increasingly disturbed by religion's influence on human affairs, I had misgivings about the foundation's agenda of reconciling religion and science.So what did I do? I went to Cambridge, of course. I rationalized that taking the foundation's money did not mean that it had bought me, as long as I remained true to my views. Yes, I used the same justification as a congressman accepting a golf junket from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But I'd already written freelance pieces for two Templeton publications, so declining this more-lucrative gig seemed silly. In for a dime, in for a dollar."
These are precisely the salami tactics of commitment that the Communists used in North Korea to brainwash captured POWs. They were encouraged to write down a few statements which were mildly critical of America -and soon, in for a dime, in for a dollar- some of the POWs started reading "confessions" about why America was wrong to be in the Korean war.
Corruption, like charity, really does begin at home. (And do read all the comments to Horgan's article -they will convince you that famous skeptics are no better at dodging fraud balls than the rest of us.)
