Arguing Science: A Dialogue on the Future of Science and Spirit © 2016 by Rupert Sheldrake, Michael Shermer and TheBestSchools.org
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher except in critical articles and reviews. Contact the publisher for information.
Printed in the United States of America.
eISBN 9781939681584
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sheldrake, Rupert. | Shermer, Michael.
Title: Arguing science : a dialogue on the future of science and spirit /
Rupert Sheldrake and Michael Shermer.
Description: Rhinebeck, New York : Monkfish Book Publishing Company, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016025408 | ISBN 9781939681577 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy and science. | Science--Philosophy. |
Physics--Philosophy. | Philosophy of nature.
Classification: LCC Q175 .S5328 2016 | DDC 501--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025408
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Table of Contents
Title Page Copyright Page PREFACE THEBESTSCHOOLS.ORG - RUPERT SHELDRAKE INTERVIEW THEBESTSCHOOLS.ORG - MICHAEL SHERMER INTERVIEW PART 1 - MATERIALISM IN SCIENCE
PART 2 - MENTAL ACTION AT A DISTANCE
PREFACE
In 2015, TheBestSchools.org website hosted an intensive Dialogue on the Nature of Science between two well-known science writers, Rupert Sheldrake and Michael Shermer. Those dialogues form the basis of this book. While the book’s editors have seen fit to rearrange some of the sequencing of the dialogue (as it appears online) and have made minor modifications in the language for the sake of clarity and readability, the dialogue published here is, in all essential matters, the same.
Drs. Sheldrake and Shermer agreed to take part in this dialogue over three consecutive months, with each month devoted to a particular topic. In the first month, May, the focus was on materialism in science. Dr. Sheldrake argued that science needs to free itself from materialist dogma; indeed, science misunderstands nature by being wedded to purely materialist explanations. Dr. Shermer opposed Dr. Sheldrake’s position, arguing that science, properly conceived, is a materialistic enterprise; for science to look beyond materialist explanations is to betray science and engage in superstition. In June, the focus was on mental action at a distance. Dr. Sheldrake defended the position that telepathy, ESP, and psychic/psi phenomena in general are real and backed up by convincing evidence; their investigation deserves to be part of science. Dr. Shermer opposed Dr. Sheldrake’s position, arguing that psychic or psi phenomena are artifacts of poor experimental procedure or outright fraud; no convincing evidence or experiments support their reality. During the third month, July, the focus was on God and science. Dr. Sheldrake put forth the notion that there is no conflict between science and the existence of God and that evidence from conscious experience renders belief in God reasonable. Dr. Shermer opposed Dr. Sheldrake’s position, arguing that science in no way supports the existence of God; in fact, science undercuts the reasonableness of belief in God.
In order to provide a suitable context for this dialogue, Drs. Sheldrake and Shermer agreed to be interviewed by The Best Schools prior to their dialogue. It is our hope that you, the reader, will enjoy this feisty and thoughtful contest of ideas as much as we have enjoyed the process of publishing them.
THEBESTSCHOOLS.ORG
RUPERT SHELDRAKE INTERVIEW
Rupert Sheldrake, a Cambridge-trained biochemist and plant physiologist, is a prominent public intellectual critical of the authoritarianism and closed-mindedness that he finds increasingly typical of mainstream science.
Sheldrake is the author of numerous bestselling books, including A New Science of Life (1981), The Rebirth of Nature (1990), The Presence of the Past (1988), Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home (1999), The Sense of Being Stared At (2003), and, most recently, Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery (2012). This interview will focus especially on Science Set Free (titled The Science Delusion in the U.K.), which concentrates on the scientific enterprise as such and the obstacles to its proper pursuit.
Sheldrake has taken on the role of scientific “gadfly” in the proud tradition of Socrates, urging scientists to question received wisdom and to remove ideological blinders.
James Barham for TheBestSchools.org: Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. Would you begin by giving us a quick sketch of your background? When and where were you born? What were your family’s circumstances? What was your religious upbringing, if any? And please describe your education and early career.
Rupert Sheldrake: I was born on June 28, 1942, in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, in the English Midlands, and was brought up there. My family was devoutly Methodist. I went to a high church Anglican boarding school. I was for a while torn between these two very different traditions—one Protestant and the other Anglo-Catholic with incense and all the trappings of Catholicism.
From a very early age I was interested in plants and animals. My father was an amateur naturalist and pharmacist and he encouraged this interest. My mother put up with it. I kept lots of animals at home.
I knew from quite an early age that I wanted to do biology, and I specialized in science at school. Then I went to Cambridge, where I studied biology and biochemistry. However, as I proceeded in my studies, a great gulf opened between my original inspiration—namely, an interest in actual living organisms—and the kind of biology I was taught: orthodox, mechanistic biology, which essentially denies the life of organisms, but instead treats them as machines.
There seemed to be very little connection between the direct experience of animals and plants and the way I was learning about them, manipulating them, dissecting them into smaller and smaller bits, getting down to the molecular level, and seeing them as evolving by blind chance and the blind forces