Guess I'm old-fashioned re science; got most of my sci edu in the
50s & 60s. The scientific "dogmas" he lists sound okay to me, at
least as working hypotheses; the Newtonian world still works pretty well
for most physics and engineering, etc. It does seem, as the TED folks
claim, his talk crosses into pseudoscience and was therefore banned.
But I don't have the expertise to make that call.
I can see Sheldrake is striving, for one, to rebutt Richard Dawkins of THE GOD DELUSION fame.......whom I've been rebutting ever since THE SELFISH GENE came out, but as an anthropologist, not a religious person.
So I'm not, as I think most anthropologists are not, a reductionist. And in agreement with Sheldrake, I don't think mind=brain.
Beyond that, as a religious person who has taught on religion and the sociology & anthro of religion, I would prefer simply to explain it this way: Science is very good at what it does, but it can only deal with the empirically known and knowable world, and that's its strength. Science (like magic) is a belief system, not a value system, tho scientism would be a value system, perhaps in danger of falling into dogmas, as Sheldrake senses.
Religion, OTOH, is both a belief and value system, and it covers both the empirically known/knowable and the unknown/unknowable -- the seen and the unseen, as the Credo suggests. It is sort of a totality or total all-encompassing approach to the material & spiritual world that goes well beyond science.
Now what is interesting is that religion is a human, sociocultural creation -- involving a world view and ethos, which as Geertz nicely points out reinforce one another.
Social sciences qua sciences can only study the empirical world (incl cultural creations, like religion). My own neo-Parsonian approach is non-deterministic and includes the impact of the all pervasive/interpenetrating environmental, biological, psychological, social, and cultural dimenisons, as analytical, not concrete distinctions. Which is perhaps why I think mind cannot be reduced to the brain, or even anything psychologists might come up with within their narrow field.
However, as a religious person I also conceive of a mostly unknown/unknowable "spiritual" dimension, all-pervasive interpenetrating -- not to be confused with "religion" (which is a human creation, even if "inspired" by God and mystical experiences). I think the spiritual has something to do with the totality Bellah speaks of; it has its own "divine economy" and makes its own sense, of which we might only get tiny glimpses, IFF we are totally open to it, tho it remains pretty much incomprehensible, as in the finite trying to grasp the infinite. This spiritual dimension goes beyond the purview of sciences and social sciences and is not what we social scientists study, tho it is an elusive topic for theology.
I think my concept of the spiritual dimension goes well beyond what Sheldrake had in mind, bec there will never be any science that can encapsulate it, so my take on Sheldrake's banned TED talk is that he's beating around the God-flaming bush. Almost as if he's trying to make science become religion. And if so, then he has failed just as badly as Dawkins failed.
Lynn
Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2013 12:22:53 -0400
From: mckenna193@AOL.COM
Subject: Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion BANNED TED TALK
To: EANTH-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
I can see Sheldrake is striving, for one, to rebutt Richard Dawkins of THE GOD DELUSION fame.......whom I've been rebutting ever since THE SELFISH GENE came out, but as an anthropologist, not a religious person.
So I'm not, as I think most anthropologists are not, a reductionist. And in agreement with Sheldrake, I don't think mind=brain.
Beyond that, as a religious person who has taught on religion and the sociology & anthro of religion, I would prefer simply to explain it this way: Science is very good at what it does, but it can only deal with the empirically known and knowable world, and that's its strength. Science (like magic) is a belief system, not a value system, tho scientism would be a value system, perhaps in danger of falling into dogmas, as Sheldrake senses.
Religion, OTOH, is both a belief and value system, and it covers both the empirically known/knowable and the unknown/unknowable -- the seen and the unseen, as the Credo suggests. It is sort of a totality or total all-encompassing approach to the material & spiritual world that goes well beyond science.
Now what is interesting is that religion is a human, sociocultural creation -- involving a world view and ethos, which as Geertz nicely points out reinforce one another.
Social sciences qua sciences can only study the empirical world (incl cultural creations, like religion). My own neo-Parsonian approach is non-deterministic and includes the impact of the all pervasive/interpenetrating environmental, biological, psychological, social, and cultural dimenisons, as analytical, not concrete distinctions. Which is perhaps why I think mind cannot be reduced to the brain, or even anything psychologists might come up with within their narrow field.
However, as a religious person I also conceive of a mostly unknown/unknowable "spiritual" dimension, all-pervasive interpenetrating -- not to be confused with "religion" (which is a human creation, even if "inspired" by God and mystical experiences). I think the spiritual has something to do with the totality Bellah speaks of; it has its own "divine economy" and makes its own sense, of which we might only get tiny glimpses, IFF we are totally open to it, tho it remains pretty much incomprehensible, as in the finite trying to grasp the infinite. This spiritual dimension goes beyond the purview of sciences and social sciences and is not what we social scientists study, tho it is an elusive topic for theology.
I think my concept of the spiritual dimension goes well beyond what Sheldrake had in mind, bec there will never be any science that can encapsulate it, so my take on Sheldrake's banned TED talk is that he's beating around the God-flaming bush. Almost as if he's trying to make science become religion. And if so, then he has failed just as badly as Dawkins failed.
Lynn
Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2013 12:22:53 -0400
From: mckenna193@AOL.COM
Subject: Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion BANNED TED TALK
To: EANTH-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Telepathy, the new physics and radical anthropology. . .
by a formally non-anthropologist (who quotes many top anthropologists like Daniel Moerman)
Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion BANNED TED TALK
Comments welcome.
BMcK
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Speaking of closed minds... -
The same behaviour was seen again during the Belgian UFO phenomenon, in which the UFOs were seen by thousands of people on the ground and was also tracked by Air Force Radar and F-16 pilots obtained a "lock" on the objects. The scientists and the skeptics denounced it as a classic case of mass delusion. As if only when the CSICOP scientists, Michael Shermer and James Randi, view it, it is an observation. Otherwise, it is a delusion ! Anybody should have the freedom to observe and experiment.
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He gave valid hypothesis' and then gave specific examples from experiments and also from the scientific community's own measurements. You're doing what is so typical in youtube commenters, and that's shooting the messenger and giving absolutely no specific examples as to what exactly he said that was wrong or repugnant. It's the equivalent of those people who just respond "You're an idiot", with nothing to back it up with.
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"Pictures are valid evidence, eye wittness accounts are not."
Pictures (photos?) have only been available for the past 150 years, and so science didn't used to depend on them. It was based on observations (eye witness accounts). For eye witness accounts there's something called corroboration. If you have lots of independent witnesses whose observations match each other's, then you rule out lying and confusion. No photos of Dark Energy, Dark Matter, or the Big Bang exist. Must be false then.
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You are guilty of personal attacks and appeals to authority here. What part of his argument do you actually disagree with?
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I don't think so. It seems that what occurred was a claim of proof of a negative based upon the assumption that the principles are understood. That shouldn't be condoned. If "we need physical evidence" is what is meant, then that is what should be said. We are all only human after all.
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Karl Sagan, where are you ?
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This guy... is repugnant. A man with qualifications such as these is unlikely to believe the nonsense he's saying, he's just preying on foolish people's inexperience of the actual scientific methodology and community, and preying on their miscomprehension.
If you want to see real academic and intellectually honest criticisms of science this is not the man to look at. He adds nothing to the dialogue from what I see.
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"Its almost as if only scientists can make observations, and if anybody else does it, he or she is delusional or hallucinating."
Pictures vs. eye wittness account. Pictures are valid evidence, eye wittness accounts are not.
Drawing this out as some kind of unreasonable bias is frankly quite stupid.
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What about socks? Or shoes?! ....
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life-affirming!!!
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They are hypotheses and opinions, as easily dismissed as saying "I disagree."
