Rupert Sheldrake: The Habits of Nature

[TaoPiet]

@ZorbaTheDutch You wrote "...Don't worry, Sheldrake's ideas have been thorougly questioned, debunked and refuted...". Well, Sheldrake has a lot of ideas, and you suggest they have all been thorougly researched and refuted. I am not convinced about that.

You wrote: "...And this, boys and girls, is what happens when a scientist smokes too much pot...". May I use your own words: "Unfounded accusations...". It seems totally biased and unscientific.

[ZorbaTheDutch]

@TaoPiet I'm talking about the ideas he mentions here, like the sun rising out of "habit" (whatever that even means in a scientifical sense) and his crackpot theory on morphic fields etc. There's no empirical evidence whatsoever for his theories and worse, some of them aren't falsifiable making them inherently pseudo--scientific.

[ZorbaTheDutch]

@TaoPiet You seriously want to deny that Sheldrake is a famous cannabis user?

[TaoPiet]

@ZorbaTheDutch You Wrote: "...Science is based on a METHOD...". Well, I didn't argue on that. I mentioned the SCIENTIFIC ESTABLISHMENT. That are the people with a body, brain and a belief/paradigm system.

You wrote: "...Nobody forces Sheldrake to use this method, but if he doesn't want to use scientific methods...". I didn't mention or assume that. Sheldrake never tells or writes that he is against the scientific method. In the contrary, he subscribes completely to the scientific method.

[ZorbaTheDutch]

@TaoPiet Sheldrake doesn't use the scientific method to arrive at, and test many of his infamous theories. His ideas are more like daydreams or opinions: interesting to read or hear about, but lacking any evidence to back them up and too vague to be considered scientific. Worse: when there's evidence falsifying his theories, he uses the same theories to try and turn the evidence around as if it were supporting his claims.

[omgtehnoobpwner]

@ZorbaTheDutch go debunk the theory that you can't fit something microscopic into your clinched asshole oh yea you can't debunk that because that's a proven law

[ZorbaTheDutch]

@omgtehnoobpwner sounds more like your habit

[ZorbaTheDutch]

And this, boys and girls, is what happens when a scientist smokes too much pot.

[TaoPiet]

The 'scientific' establishment acts actually as a church. It is based on certain assumptions or in other words, on belief systems. When these assumptions/belief systems are questioned then that is considered as a heresy. Then the witch hunt gets started...

[ZorbaTheDutch]

@TaoPiet Unfounded accusations. Science is based on a METHOD. Nobody forces Sheldrake to use this method, but if he doesn't want to use scientific methods to test his hypotheses, then he isn't doing science anymore.

[texasB666]

These scientists (except Sheldrake) should read "Against Method" by Paul Feyerabend. Traditional science, if i may call it that, seems to be like a religion. I think its very wrong when scientists come up with an idea and that idea shouldn't be questioned. If we are civilized, we ALL should have some sort of right to expres our own ideas, because i think no one has the answer to anything. "Laws of nature"? I never liked that term. It doesn't make sense to me.

[ZorbaTheDutch]

@texasB666 "I think its very wrong when scientists come up with an idea and that idea shouldn't be questioned."

Don't worry, Sheldrake's ideas have been thoroughly questioned, debunked and refuted.

[magicalray93]

Sheldrake, ditch these fucks, they're below you.

[bl8ant]

sheldrake, doctor of pseudoscience.

[alliant]

the sun coming up every morning is a law? are you kidding me?

what if a huge asteroid were to knock it off orbit? would that break the law?

Rupert you are TRULY a scientist. you work for truth.

[samuelsixvids]

@alliant well said brother!

[levivelivel]

is there a full version of this interview?

[scotty123123]

That german scientist is totally retarded. You have to assume constancy or induction, before you can test anything.

[alliant]

@CSTATB

lol brilliant.

[CSTATB]

@alliant My comments been removed? What did I say, I don't remember? I'm sure it was brilliantly witty and in no way offensive!

[SidewalkFrequencies]

It's always a problem when your trying

to interject a concept of organic life and

personality in nature, into bunch of scientifically

disheveled corpses, hats off to Rupert for trying.

[celebrating108]

The sun doesn't rise every morning, the earth revolves around the sun... Sheldrake seems very used to presenting concepts to his peers in an environment of incredible prejudice. Rock on Rupert!

[alantois]

Richard Dawkins is terrified of Rupert Sheldrake.

[theapeman10]

what a load of rubbish - mars is different from earth - so anything and everything happens basic building blocks create others - the universe may be different everytime it develops - but these guys are really only spending the time trying to show against each other talking for the point of disagreeing. They should start by saying what do they agree on. people have the basis problem their mind given a TV camera is to try to show how clever they are. 4.42 of time wasted and some said nothing.

[emmerton]

sheldrake is the man!! he seems always is very grounded, not fundamentalistic... very charming

[Kessiel]

Gould makes a sarcastic remark: "Habits aren't anthropocentric?" And Sheldrake's responds by saying: "No, because animals have habits, not laws."

[MrCuntyballs2U]

God bless him.... Ruperts Causa Sui is worthy

[qigong1001]

Dennett, puts Sheldrake in his place, by pointing out how he is trying to replace the concept of "law", with his own unfounded "habit" law, which has its own rules and regulations. It amazes me how someone can be so handedly defeated in an argument, yet the comments on this site suggest it went the other way. This exemplifies "confirmation bias." ~ignoring information that goes against your preconceived beliefs and favoring those that support it.

[kaptainwillard]

@qigong1001 could it not be said that you're guilty of the same thing here--that is, simply favoring dennett's argument over sheldrake's? moreover, aside from the fact that the others refuse to allow that the notion of fixed "laws" could be wrong, there's also a problem of semantics, as well; laws vs. habits, etc. sheldrake's implied point, though, proves he's most in line with the project of science in the end: scientists, by default, ought not assume things to be fixed or immutable.

[qigong1001]

@kaptainwillard Everyone is guilty of something. However, when Dennett points out the inconsistency, Sheldrake "concedes"; that means he has no counter. His whole basis is shattered. You can't concede your faulty foundation, then argue from it.

Can you name one physicist who says laws are fixed? Read Paul Davies work on the BEYOND SCIENCE website. “There is no law except the law that there is no law” ~John Wheeler.

[hoah]

@qigong1001 you just diagnosed yourself?

[qigong1001]

@hoah Elaborate.

[chris5a3w]

Interesting how the scientists seem to be so guarded, as if they are living in dread of something being revealed that will disqualify them. Is it that the are afraid that their lack of understanding will be revealed?

[SexyMelon]

Ah. Refreshing to hear a calm and intelligent argument.

As Sheldrake correctly, albeit underhandedly, notes, the thing about Science is that it is indeed an assumption. Scientific methodology itself is no more than any other assumption one can make. The reason we use it is because it has simply proven to work, indeed on a grand scale.

With science, we can verify things. One can assert that laws of the universe might be changing... But how do you verify it? And if you can't, what's the use?

[HA3OP]

@SexyMelon well, it's pretty obvious and it was already verified in the recent past, with the advent of quantum physics

[NicolaRedwooddforest]

The other scientists are not open to the discussion. They don't really receive Rupert Sheldrake's statements with an open and humble attitude.

[mikevern69]

banged in a big way to rights.

[soccom8341576]

It's an open question.

[vanderbilt887]

(yawn)

"But you have enough time to argue with people on youtube?"

Uhhh. Yes, I do have something called "spare time". And this isn't a debate, you responded to a message of mine, which itself was an old response. I respond to you with a message typed in about a femtosecond, idem the second, ergo I haven't wasted much of my time, unlike you. Now, if you will pardon me, I have some music to listen to. You do go on and waste some more of your time.

[vanderbilt887]

What I meant was when I said: "you've fallen for his claptrap" is that you have actually wasted precious time in this life reading his nonsense, that's it. I couldn't care less whatever your opinion on Sheldrake, nor whatsoever else, is. Indeed, I don't even care one bit about seriously debating Sheldrake, because I'm not interested in nonsense. Fuck, I'm not even motivated in any single one way to act "classy" here.

[cybeavertoo]

always interesting to throw a wild card into a deck of established pokerplayers. You can almost see them find the need to start thinking and refrasing all the truths they thought would never ever had to be re-thought. Priceless drama.

[buildthis99]

Amaxamon, that more than one approach can explain the same phenomenon does not render one of those approaches invalid. Even if it did, how would one decide which approach to reject? Does molecular biology have some special status? If so, why?

[amaxamon]

I remember seeing this when it first aired. How Sheldrake got to sit at that table is beyond me...! He's kinda groovy in his own strange woo-way, but...

[superdiza]

I'm surprised Dyson would say the laws of nature seem to be unchanging, while physics can't explain 2/3 of the mass of everything and the universe is accelerating it's expansion..

[DeerRVN]

you can cut the tension in there with a knife, any measurements on that atmosphere? Lucy in the sky with black diamonds in the rough carbon!!!!

[imbalancingact]

Sheldrake's a religious quack. The rest of the panel was embarrassed that he was there.

[Swaynze33]

nigga what year was this recorded?

[imbalancingact]

@Swaynze33

1993

[fourplusseven]

Wow vintage clip, excellent. Where was this first broadcast?

It's interesting how people like that last guy prefer to take the conversation to ridiculing territory. I suspect whoever does that first in a conversation tends to be wrong. :)

[HurricaneHeidi]

@fourplusseven - yes, I agree. The retreat into scoffing and ridicule is non-intellectual and uncooperative and probably based upon a subliminal fear of being proven wrong. I think that was Stephen Jay Gould, whose theory of punctuated equilibrium (attempting to explain large jumps in the process of evolution from one species to the next) is less convincing to me than Rupert Sheldrake's theories of Morphic Resonance and Formative Causation.

You'll notice that Dr. Sheldrake is ALWAYS polite

[fourplusseven]

@HurricaneHeidi -- indeed, Sheldrake is a very patient and polite person. He's an inspiration in terms of being able to live on the record about this stuff.

Psychologically, the 'retreat into scoffing' fascinates me... naturally it has nothing to do with science. Its non-vocalized subtext appears to be: "We can all agree that [x], and if we can't, well... oh dear." It is actually a rhetorical technique, old as the sophists, a gambit of which Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca were well aware.

[The34gl3]

@fourplusseven You are absolutely right.

[orangeness1]

By pseudoscience you mean contrary to the law set down by reigning scientists, don't you?

[whitenightf3]

What he means is that anyone who does not hold to the consensus view is not a real scientists. Yet, history shows us that it is the nonconformist, the iconoclasts on the periphery who always push science forwards. The classic example being Einstein who had every physicist line up against him.

[HA3OP]

@whitenightf3 Indeed... Some more examples of 'scientific iconoclasts' were such great minds as Nikola Tesla, Wilchelm Reich and Viktor Schauberger. How much more developed and sane our world could have been, were the majority of scientists not prone to indoctrination.

[whitenightf3]

@HA3OP You know what I love about Sheldrake the most is he does not hide himself away in a ivory tower. I have been swapping e-mails with him and he is open minded to suggestions. In fact he wants to get us lay people involved in his Science. I suggested that if he wanted evidence for telepathy then he should conduct experiments with us chess players who often experience it.

[laurentius82]

Rupert Sheldrake is nothing but a pseudoscientist who lives in his own magic wonderland, oblivious to the real world...

[Pianoman8]

Sheldrake is onto something. Humans love certainty and tend to look for such when trying to understand what they are observing but miss the possibility that 'the laws' can themselves have an evolution

[resuetil]

mmmmmmmmmm

[vanderbilt887]

Sheldrake isn't on to anything. Who cares about the supermarket label 'law', what is important is what is meant by it. It has nothing to do with human laws. Dyson is correct: natural laws are based upon empircal observations, repeated scientific experiments over many years. The fundamental laws are considered universal for good reasons, otherwise you would have to explain localities in nature where certain laws hold and other's don't. Such explanations do not exist. If the fundamental

[vanderbilt887]

laws hold up to milliseconds (and less) after the big bang, according to the principle of non-locality (which is correct), the fundamental laws should apply everywhere in the universe right now. There's nothing anthropocentric about the conservation of energy, nor is it emergent as far as scientists can tell, it's just the way nature is (just like the constants of nature). They could be seen emergent as part of a multiverse, but that is as of yet pure speculation.

[vanderbilt887]

This only applies however to the fundamental laws of nature, not, for example, to Newton's gravitation law, which is an approximation.

(by the way, with the principle of non-locality I'm not talking about quantum physics, I mean the absence of any center in the universe).

[amaxamon]

@vanderbilt887 Everything Sheldrake used as an an example of not having a scientific explanation (barring ESP) has been explained by molecular biology. Yet he keeps those examples in his books. That's bad science.

[vanderbilt887]

Yes, I guess your right. I never wasted my time reading Sheldrake (fortunately!), but from what I can gather from wikipedia, he is indeed a pseudoscientist - something which I already smelled the first second he started to speak.

(One can develop a nose for these things)

;-)

[MetaphysicsAddict]

@vanderbilt887 I'm agnostic about Sheldrake's hypothesis here, BUT you've never read his work, and yet you just *know* that his work is "pseudoscience"... and you know that from wikipedia? You should submit your findings to the Journal of Scientific Exploration: "Dear JSE Editors, wikipedia proves that Sheldrake's ideas are bogus."

Try reading his work. Read his peer-reviewed papers, including his replies to critics. He may be wrong, but that is not as obvious as you're making it sound.

[vanderbilt887]

I don't have the time nor the inclination to so blatantly waste my energy. Truth is that I don't have to read person A to know person A is full of bullshit. Of course, you interpret that as being close minded, but that's only because you (like most people here) have fallen for his claptrap.

I read peer-review papers, but not about Sheldrake. I'm much, much to busy studying physics, and reading whatever captivates my imagination. So, Sheldrake: eat shit.

[MetaphysicsAddict]

@vanderbilt887 "I read peer-review papers, but not about Sheldrake"

Then you have nothing valuable to say about his work. You only know hearsay accounts.

"you have fallen for his claptrap"

Interesting since I clearly said that I'm "agnostic" about his work. Maybe he's wrong.

"I'm much to busy studying physics, and reading whatever captivates my imagination."

But you have enough time to argue with people on youtube?

"So, Sheldrake: eat shit."

Classy

[Astraeos13]

The guy with the moustache at the end is a SCIENTIST?! "The sun rises every day"?? Hellooo! What is this, 400BC?

[johnfats]

Rupert is right, the rest are closet reductionists.

[JosephKnight93]

What a magnificent group of people

[leezus83]

Sheldrake owns these guys by miles.

[JAYDUBYAH29]

sheldrake is very confused and fuzzy.

[topeson]

I really applaud Sheldrake, I think he is on to something. The greatest minds were always laughed at or thought crazy at one point.

[noirgris0]

So were the stupid ones

[topeson]

Perhaps, but rarely were the "stupid ones" PhD holders.

[hexnyc]

@topeson I'm always making that same point about the greatest minds, cool.

[ZorbaTheDutch]

@topeson "The greatest minds were always laughed at or thought crazy at one point."

Unfortunately the opposite is rarely true: Someone who's laughed at or thought crazy is most likely not one of the greatest minds.

[rabarbaruso]

do you have the full recording of this discussion?