I just got this letter in the email. Oddly enough, it appears to be serious:

The Arete Initiative at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce a new $2 million research program on the nature and benefits of Wisdom. Although it has been neglected in the past, a new scientific and scholarly study of Wisdom has the potential to raise new questions, challenge assumptions, and develop new theoretical and empirical models which will enliven debate within and across disciplines. we are looking for new ideas and approaches from the brightest young scholars. To this end, in 2008 we will award up to twenty (20), two-year research grants to scholars from institutions around the world who have received their Ph.D within the past ten years.

We are looking for highly original, methodologically rigorous projects from a broad range of disciplines: neuroscience, psychology, genetics, evolutionary biology, game theory, computer science, sociology, anthropology, economics, philosophy, ethics, education, human development, history, theology, and religion. Although individual projects will likely take root in a particular area or in two related areas, award recipients will participate in annual research meetings . . .

I was relieved to see that statistics was on this list; unfortunately, political science is listed on the webpage. Not to be too skeptical or anything–I’m sure many of my own research projects can be easily and usefully mocked–but I’m doubtful about what sort of “highly original, methodologically rigorous projects” can be done on the “nature and benefits of Wisdom.” It reminds me a bit of the research project in The Tin Men where they were designing ethical machines. Or maybe it’s the capital-letter thing with Wisdom that draws suspicion. Couldn’t they have thrown in a few more buzzwords, such as “evidence-based” and “feng shui”? Maybe “six-sigma tough”? On the other hand, hey, it’s only $2 million, that’s not a lot of money.

P.S. I don’t know anything about the Arete Institute. This seems to be their only project right now. Ideally their next project will involve improvements in R that will allow multilevel models to be fit more efficiently. Which will increase our understanding of variation in the human and natural worlds and thus lead us toward greater collective wisdom.

P.P.S. I have nothing against wisdom. Wisdom is great, I wish I had more of it. It’s just hard to imagine much coming out of this particular effort. But maybe that just reflects my lack of imagination (a different problem than lack of wisdom).