‘Maverick biologist’ Rupert Sheldrake thinks there is a big problem in science, caused by those who employ it as a belief system, rather than using it as a method of inquiry. He thinks science is being held back by the former, and in his soon-to-be-released book Science Set Free (already available in the UK as The Science Delusion) he offers the “ten dogmas of science” that he thinks need to be treated with more suspicion than they currently are:
- That nature is mechanical.
- That matter is unconscious.
- The laws of nature are fixed.
- The totally amount of matter and energy are always the same.
- That nature is purposeless.
- Biological inheritance is material.
- That memories are stored as material traces.
- The mind is in the brain.
- Telepathy and other psychic phenomena are illusory.
- Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.
The ‘science delusion’ is the uncritical belief in these dogmas, treating them not as beliefs but as truths… Science is much more fun, much more interesting, much more free, when we turn these dogmas into questions.
See the video at the top of this post for Sheldrake’s more detailed explanation of these ten dogmas, or better still pick up the book for the complete argument.
US: Science Set Free (released Sept 4, 2012)
UK: The Science Delusion (available now)
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