26 March 2013

Welcome back to Part 2 of our two-part series on banned TED talks. 
Part 1 yesterday discussed 'The War on Consciousness'.
The second TED talk is by Rupert Sheldrake titled 'The Science Delusion'.
The battle against dogmatism rages on!

What a Daily Quota we have for you today.
In this 18 minute video, Sheldrake gives a very brief insight into how modern science has become dogmatic, closed-minded and materialistic.
The scientific method is based on rationale, hypothesis, experiment and tentative conclusion. Tentative conclusion. However, Sheldrake fears science is turning away from the pursuit of such things, and instead into a world view - similar to the likes of religion.

As part of his critique, he lists his 10 Dogmas of the Science World View, which form the basis of his most recent book The Science Delusion:

• Every organism in the universe works like a machineIt has input and output features, it is mechanical and it is reliant on one or two primary parts.
• Everything is made up of unconscious matterHere we allude to yesterday's post on consciousness, and how the existence of a soul cannot be proven, therefore cannot be existent.
• The laws of nature are fixedExcept for, apparently, the Big Bang. In reference to that, he jokes that science has adopted a method of explaining such phenomena: "give us one free miracle, we'll explain the rest."
• Total amount of matter and energy is the same, never changes in quantityThe speed of light, and in fact, gravitational units, have changed multiple times over the past few centuries. Fun fact, indeed.
  Were the methods changing, were the researchers fudging the numbers, or are these forces, in fact, dynamic?
• Nature is purposelessGood ol' existentialism. You are born, you live, you die. 
• Biological heredity is material, everything you inherit is in your genes onlyHow do giraffes know to act like giraffes, from the moment they are born? Is our behaviour and mind stored also in our genes? How are cats born with an instinct to chase rats?
  Here he discusses the fascinating concept of morphic resonance and collective memory.
• Memories are storied inside your brain as material tracesNo one knows how the brain works, but we just assume thoughts and processes are stored there - vivid images and imagination formed and stored by some gooey tissue and nerve activity.
  Solid-state HDD?
• Your mind is inside your headWhere else would it be, in your soul? Your consciousness? Chakras?
  Nonsense.
• Psychic phenomena is impossibleIntuition, telepathy, that sense of being stared at - all must be illusory as they cannot be proven with today's scientific method. Therefore, everyone else is a quack.
• Mechanistic medicine is the only type that worksThe body is a machine, therefore we must repair it like a machine. Forget complex chemical reactions, let us extract one or two primary nutrients and put them in pill form. Western medicine is king (just don't ask us how to cure cancer, back problems, obesity, or any of the other diseases plaguing mankind).
  Eastern medicine worked? Bah...placebo.

What a Daily Quota for today.
The 18 minute video is below, and it is well, well worth the time.

Watch it.
Watch it now.

WATCH IT HERE