The Templeton Foundation has awarded its $1.6 million annual prize to astrophysicist, former Royal Society President, and SFI Science Board member Sir Martin Rees.

"Some people might surmise that intellectual immersion in vast expanses of space and time would render cosmologists serene and uncaring about what happens next year, next week, or tomorrow," Rees said at a news conference. "But … even in a perspective extending billions of years into the future, as well as into the past, this century may be a defining moment."

As Science notes, Rees, an agnostic, is a controversial choice for the Templeton Prize, which is given to a person who has "made exceptional contributions to affirming life's spiritual dimension."

Rees, the master of Trinity College of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and Astronomer Royal, has a seat in the House of Lords and served as president of the Royal Society from 2005 until November 2010.

Read the Science article (April 6, 2011)

Listen to BBC Radio 4's interview with Rees (June 26, 2010)

Read the New Statesman interview with Rees (April 6, 2010)