The science delusion

[ThinkingSapien]

nice straw manning.

it was a (failed) attempt at humor.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Yet in the end, science does arrive at generally accepted theories that each have stood up to an immeasurable number of tests (and yes, the theory of evolution is just as accepted among scientists as the atomic theory or the theory of relativity; it is not a product of a conspiracy, but based on mountains of evidence.)

---

*) For example, I share with many the belief that string theory is false (read Smolin’s The Trouble with Physics for good reasons why that would be so). There has been no shred of evidence for it so far, but an immense number of scientists are so invested in the theory (or to be more correct, hypothesis) that it will take a lot of time for this anomaly to be self-correcting. It is unprecedented in the history of science that a hypothesis is basically unverified for 40 years, and still accepted as being in the scientific mainstream.

I completely agree with you. The pursuit of understanding the way things work, which is how I personally define “science,” works because of the process. And the conservatism is necessary, “new truth” should be difficult to assimilate, it should have to be so obviously incontrovertible that it becomes part of the bedrock we can build on.

IMO, Sheldrake and others pursuing things on the very boundaries of what we think of as scientific are doing exceedingly important work. But because what the PEARS people or Melvin Morse are pursuing is so nascent as well as being politically charged and culturally revolutionary, it’s necessary for the process to repress, to slow them down, to force them into developing some essential theories that describe the way these things work without the religious or spiritual language. We need the language to describe and define as well as the objective standards which we can’t even begin to arrive at without decades of observation. We don’t even quite know what “it” is. Just that there’s something.

The balance we need is for research not to be rejected by journals only because it pushes boundaries and seems to provide evidence of extraordinary phenomena.

Sheldrake doesn’t see that he’s been pounding this nail so long, he’s turning himself into the very thing he is criticizing.