Good science, like good religion, is a journey of discovery, a quest. Bad religion is arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. And so is bad science. English scientist and author Rupert Sheldrake holds these ideas close to his heart. Most of Sheldrake’s ideas (his argument that science must include alternative medicine, psychic phenomena, and a greater focus on holistic thinking), especially his concept of ‘morphic resonance’, have received negative reception from the scientific community.
That didn’t stop Rupert Sheldrake from outlining 10 dogmas ‘apparently’ produced by science that have been scientifically proven to be incorrect…
- Nature is mechanical or machine like
- All matter is unconscious
- The laws or constants of nature are fixed
- The total amount of matter and energy is always the same
- Nature is purposeless
- Biological heredity is material
- Memories are stored inside your brain
- Your mind is inside your head
- Psychic phenomena like telepathy is not possible
- Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that works
The TED Talks slogan, “ideas worth spreading”, doesn’t seem to apply to all ideas and therefore when Rupert Sheldrake delivered a provocative speech at TED Talks on “The Science Delusion” and how the above 10 dogmas held back the pursuit of knowledge, the video was controversially banned by the TED community.
Rupert Sheldrake emphasized that instead of redeveloping a hypothesis after evidence proves the initial theory wrong, people get stuck in maintaining their ‘beliefs’ because of the money, fear, ego and pride that get in the way. People think that what they have been taught in school is absolute and must be true. Educated people get enraged when they are told about the new findings that challenge their pre-existing ‘beliefs’.
The Science Delusion took aim at the scientific dogmatism that sets itself up as gospel; he tried to address what he saw as the limitations of contemporary scientific thought. Watch the video below and share what you think about TED’s claims that Rupert’s TED Talk “crossed the line into pseudoscience, contained serious factual errors and made misleading statements”.
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I couldn’t find any claim of the 10 dogmas of science, except in reference to this guy. That would seem to indicate he defined the dogmas himself, which would open himself up to biased selection of those dogmas. The claim that science views everything as machines is false: chaos theory is one of many great examples of how we do not. The claim of total energy/matter always being the same is also false, fusion/fission convert between the two, so they obviously do not stay the same. People believe memories are in the brain because removal of parts of the brain yields in removal of memories, whereas removal of parts of other organs does not. The claim on consciousness is selectively narrowed into an absurdity; read any research into consciousness, and it quickly becomes apparent we study the entire nervous system, not just the brain (other systems were studied in the past, but absolutely no evidence has ever been found). Governments do not ignore complementary medicines: these include things like massage therapy, meditation, etc. It’s widely accepted they work when used concurrently with mainstream medicines. He introduces alternative medicine with complementary medicine in an attempt to credit by association.
He then attempts to discredit one of the “dogmas” that science doesn’t universally agree with anyways. Increasingly it is understood that old laws are actually theorems. Newtonian “laws” aren’t referred to as such in modern literature. Conventional physics doesn’t hold true at very small or very large scale. No scientist argues against this. Yet he claims it is so.
His “morphic resonance” theory is likely just people learning technique. The first time someone synthesized graphene, for example, it was phenomenally difficult. Now, it is not so difficult, even if it is not easy. This seems to clearly be the result of learning the conditions necessary to synthesize graphene (strong vacuum to limit hydrogen levels, high heat to speed formation). His theory can readily be tested by attempting to form graphene over and over again using the original technique, or some other similar test, and seeing an improved yield each time, despite identical technique. Yet this principle is never supported directly in his speech.
What he did here isn’t just pseudoscience. It’s filled with fallacies, and a serious lack of ability to verify claims. He speaks like an authoritarian, not like a philosopher.
BOOM. Truth bomb by Patrick!
The pursuit of status. That is all Rupert Sheldrake is doing. Pursuing status. Funding for research projects can be influenced by public opinion and that funding can come from people that are ignorant of science. The majority of funding, however, comes from proof of possibility of concept. Blacklight Power is another snow job just like what Sheldrake is doing. Also, Low Energy Nuclear Reactions. Scientists that want to go it alone will use tricks like Sheldrake to get funding that they use to simply provide for their own well-being.
I was thinking pretty much the same thing. Well said.
I couldn’t have said it better.
Patrick – you won’t find anything else on the 10 dogmas of science – that is the whole point. You will however find 10 scientific laws. Sheldrake has termed them “Dogmas” for a very good reason. Dogma is a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true. It serves as part of the primary basis of an ideology or belief system. Science would never call any of it’s theories ‘beliefs’.
Well Bella, the thing is that only this guy and people with little knowledge of science actually believe these “laws” are held as dogmas. One of the biggest problems with science literacy is that terms like law and theory mean in scientific terms something very different than those words in day to day conversation. Trying to equate scientific priciples to human law is absurd. In fact, if you go to a scientist and show him your alternative scientific theory where the gravitational constant is actually a variable, with data that is both reproducible and verifiable, that actually predicts and matches our observations of the universe, you’ll be a science rock star, not a pariah.
I feel in my opinion he brings up valid points. What I have been taught in basic education is limiting if anything else. The rules or guide lines set by “whoever’s” have only been proven futile to stand against time. As time goes on new developments are made and the understanding of science improves; as religion may do. Perhaps his motives are more to his liking but I can’t deny the subjects brought to light. This stuff is awesome and who wants to think in a box.
But…where is Charlie ?
I see what you did there.
This was likely not aired due to the lack of quality of the ideas contained within, not because of some censorship plan. For the same reason, a voice instructor isn’t going to have his/her worst student perform at a premiere showcase.
As the other commenter pointed out, this man makes a huge list of proclamations, proceeds to give evidence for none of them, and constructs this huge diatribe heavy on assertions and low on evidence and reason, as well as several statements that were either patently false or based off of common misperception and fallacy.
Oh well, next time.
and who is TED to decide what can or can’t be published or released as video? if he is wrong let people decide
He is free to publish his weird ideas elsewhere.
LOL you guys I swear some of those things I cant deny I haven’t heard before but if you look up memories aren’t stord in the brain, your mind is inside your head, all matter is unconscious, and telepathy you can find a plethora of stuff to read so much in fact it would make your head spin….if you don want to believe these that’s fine I really could care less but to sit her and deny the fact that religion and science hasn’t flip flopped in the last 500 years is about as stupid as saying there is no God…a nice middle ground towards both subject materials is the only way to the truth *shrugs*
Ted Talks are supposed to be a forum of new Ideas!!! EVERY YEAR over 5000 Energy Related Patents that are submitted are Classified for National Security. The system by which this is done relates to the input of Government Agencies that are highly influenced by Huge Corporate powers that are also not accountable by Name. This in the age of a push button world were most all products and most services have extremely high end user costs related to the price of energy. (A cellphone has little material value in terms of the original resources used to make it)
The environmental costs also increase dramatically with the suppression of new technologies. A point has long ago been reached were the suppression of these new Ideas has passed the bar and has become nothing but pure corruption… Our secure future has become related to the suppression of Ideas rather than our Defense!!! TED simply confirms all of this again here, with further suppression and without regard to Science… Science is not Science when Militarism and status quo Business interests control the entire Political Environment that regulates even your personal intellect!!!
This is exactly why History reflects on Humanity the records known as the Dark Ages so badly!!! Our world needs to grow up and start allowing progress so Humanity can then learn to handle it’s own increase in numbers!!!
I don’t know why you uneducated dumbshits keep posting all this pseudo-science. What good do you think you’re doing for the world if you haven’t taken any physics or analytic philosophy courses?
What else do you expect from this place? It’s full of moonbats and cranks.
Lonnie, don’t call it the Dark Ages, but rather the Middle Ages between the classical and Renaissance time periods… It implies a common misconception that there was a loss of record or a halting of learning, but go study the Middle East during that time period.. Credentials: historian
European Dark Ages.
Flux capacitor. Cosmic joke?
Patrick Kelly summed it up perfectly. Does AnonHQ really think anything this guy says holds any water? The “ideas worth spreading” slogan totally fits here because these are not ideas worth spreading. I thought AnonHQ was better than groveling for political correctness.
I’m sorry, I stopped listening at the moment where he said that all matter and energy sprang forth from nothing in a single instant at the moment of the big bang. He wrote a book about this and he doesn’t even understand how the big bang theory works? Literally arguing with idiots on the internet would be a better use of my time right now.
I’m sorry, I stopped listening at “…except at the big bang when it all sprang into existence from nowhere in a single instant.” This guy seriously wrote an entire book and couldn’t even be bothered to google “The big bang”? Arguing with idiots on the internet is a better use of my time than watching this guy right now.
“…scientifically proven to be incorrect”
Science doesn’t ‘prove’ anything. The scientific method can only disprove theories. I think you mean ‘scientifically disproven’.
As in a high percentage of alternative medicine has been scientifically disproven. In very large, laboratory controlled, double blind tests. Much like the oft disproved belief that organic foods have more nutrients or taste better.
Main point is that Sheldrake brings up real issues. I don’t know if his answers are right, but for example to explain species purely by genetics demands some extra factors being involved in protein coding (in my opinion at least). To explain things simply by genes and survival of the fittest might not realistically support this level of biodiversity either. So i claim there really might be some extra factors involved. I actually think many scientist would agree with this, They might not explain it by new field phenomena, but they might say maybe there exist deeper gene interaction, unknown layer of gene information or something similar. Point is, even if we would explain things by genetics, we might still have to alter our world view in some unknown way to make it truly work.
While it doesn’t make panpsychism as something to blindly embrace, it becomes one possible theory. I do find it realistic that there would be yet unknown life supporting factors in nature. Sheldrake has this theory of collective memory between species. When one understand that this in not something that is meant to be “a stable image”, but something that supports survival, one might speculate with some form of lamarckism where information from past few generations affects the way proteins are coded, or rather the way in which this generic information starts to work as a complex unique unit. Of course many things affect it after that, but there might be this yet unknown memory factor that could support panpsychism and maybe something like “bodily memory” also.
If there would be traces of this kind of very early instinctual memory between certain members of species, it might support some psychic phenomena as well (between those who share certain genetic traces in the same species). Of course this would take much more speculative leap. But when formulated in the way I did above, I would definitely call myself as pan psychic. I think it can simply explain certain things in much wider level.