Rupert Sheldrake... could he be on to something?

!Kaggen said:
Yes, I know all about Popper and falsification.

I disagree that imagination is not useful.

Imagining counterfactuals is very important in childhood development and could be argued as child psychologist Prof. Alison Gopnik (http://www.alisongopnik.com/) does that it is the foundation of the scientific method.

The observation skills that artists develop could be very useful for scientists especially those working in the field where noticing detail could easily result in huge savings in time and effort. Some of the most important contributors to our understanding of plant systematics have been amateur naturalists with a keen eye for drawing plants.

It is not an either or argument but a matter of using skill learnt from art training in science. In my experience the reverse could also be beneficial.
Click to expand...

I am fine with all that. When it comes to sources for hypotheses there should be no rules or we will likely stifle fruitful creativity. There are examples of wrong-headed thinking leading to useful theories and then there is Kekulé's famous daydream that led to an understanding of the shape of the benzine molecule. What matters is that the resulting hypotheses are falsifiable in principle and subjected to rigorous attempts to do same.

How does Sheldrake's apparently super natural explanations of morphogenesis relate to your replies?
 
Last edited:
gg5000 said:
I've read only one book by Sheldrake and I've seen a few of his videos. My take (and I'm no expert on his body of work) is that he makes a good argument for telepathy and other similar phenomena being a natural, not paranormal way of communication that members of the same species have.
Click to expand...
The biggest argument against the existence of paranormal powers of any kind is that hardly anybody today appears to possess any. Think about it; telepathy, precognition, telekinesis and suchlike are such useful talents that they would be selected for in any species.
For example: it's 10,000 BC and Joe goes out in the early morning for a pee. Just in time, he spots a leopard hiding in the tree that every member of the tribe must walk under, ready to drop on some unsuspecting breakfast. He turns around to go back, then sees half a dozen members of the tribe coming the same way. He's in a dilemma - if he cries out to warn people, the leopard will drop on him.
But - wait! He finds he's got telepathy and he can speak to people far away without making a sound! So he silently warns people about the leopard. He and everybody runs back to the tribe - Joe is a hero! He gets to become tribal leader! All the women want to have his baby! He begats endlessly! His begats also possess telepathy, and and they begat in their turn.
Which, ladies and gentlemen, is why nobody today needs those silly mobile phone gadgets.
 
Jeff Corey said:
This is relatively recent: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/209/15/2888.full
Click to expand...

This shows that smell plays a significant role, which means we need better reason to doubt the sense of smell is the main method than Sheldrakes incredulity:

The conclusion from [research on smell] is that in some circumstances, especially in Italy, the sense of smell plays a part in the orientation of pigeons, but it cannot by itself explain how pigeons find their homes.
Click to expand...
 
sophia8 said:
The biggest argument against the existence of paranormal powers of any kind is that hardly anybody today appears to possess any. ...snip....
Click to expand...

There's another argument along those lines and that is how all the large scale psi powers have disappeared.

People only started to think about paranormal powers because folks were claiming they could move things with the power of their mind, that they could read each other's thoughts and so on. All of those powers disappeared when tested and these days we are reduced to a "psi of the gaps", folks like Sheldrake trying to cram the magic into the ever reducing gaps in our knowledge.
 
gg5000 said:
I've read only one book by Sheldrake and I've seen a few of his videos. My take (and I'm no expert on his body of work) is that he makes a good argument for telepathy and other similar phenomena being a natural, not paranormal way of communication that members of the same species have.

I'm not here to defend Sheldrake at all. Whether his methods to scientifically prove this point are valid or invalid, is beside the point. I don't think that he's got much of an intention with this other than selling books, bless his heart.

I am interested in the core belief that there are natural phenomena that we have yet to explain in scientific ways. After all, things like cancer and any number of other natural phenomena continue to evade solutions and clear understanding, even with the vast amounts of money, research and man-hours devoted to them scientifically.

Sometimes as skeptics some of us are too quick to dismiss things as untrue or foolish or coincidence, when we may not have the full picture. Now, we can usually spot a scammer very quickly given the claims they make for profit, taking advantage of the less aware. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I believe that as a real skeptic, one should be critical of the scientific institutions (not the method, of course) because after all, they are only people too, with political views, agendas, budgets, grants to keep, reputations to uphold within their circles, etc.
Click to expand...

There is a distinction between not being able to explain/explain fully and having nothing to explain. Cancer is not a single disease so a single cause is not likely to exist - nor is a single cure. However, cancer is clearly something that exists, has been clearly observed to exist, treatments for it have been found that help alleviate aspects of it and often end it - depending on the type, aggressiveness of the cancer, etc.

None of that applies to ghosts, UFOs, telepathy, telekinesis, chupacabras, vampires, werewolves etc/ad infin. As we often say here those are all as likely (except UFOs as it just means something flying that we do not recognize/can't identify) as Invisible Pink Unicorns, Flying Spaghetti Monster (May you be touched with his noodley goodness) or yahweh. It is not that science cannot explain them, it is there is zero (0) evidence for any of them that is remotely observable scientifically. The most any have is anecdotes - and 100,000 anecdotes aren't worth one single controlled, observed and verified real event.
 
Last edited:
godless dave said:
What about it? I don't think there's anybody alive who would dispute that.
Click to expand...


I would not dispute that there are natural phenomena unknown to science to inquire.

I totally and utterly dispute that there are evidence of ESP/paranormal phenomena, be them explained or not.

And that is the jump they (Woo like Sheldrake) are trying to imply : that ESP and other paranormal phenomenon are hitherto unknown/unexplained phenomena (the unsaid implication is that such phenomena exists). But the reality is that those have not been *evidenced* to exists at all.

That would be like trying to say not everything is known in evolution, and then saying bigfoot 's evolution is as of yet unexplained. No, no NO. First you show evidence of bigfoot existing, then you study its evolution.

Same with ESP. Show us the goods, then we can discuss if the phenomena is unexplained/unknown to science. Up to now I have seen diddly squat which correspond to that category.
 
Last edited:
!Kaggen said:
It is not an either or argument but a matter of using skill learnt from art training in science.
Click to expand...

I am not at all sure that one can teach art. If there is some kind of spark, then one can show and guide. Same in any field really.

You might get some bare facts into heads; art-history, the changing styles and eras and some techniques. I don't think you can teach the patience and skill it takes to get to careful drawing and observation.

I'm an artist, woe; I can read and enjoy science, but you will lose me when you wheel out the equations.

In my experience the reverse could also be beneficial.
Click to expand...

Agreed - more science, more reason, more skepticism at a young age. I wish I had heard about UFOs and Bigfoot and ESP and about how they are all hot air rubbish! As a kid I soaked that bull up. I would have soaked up the sense just as fast.
 
sophia8 said:
Which, ladies and gentlemen, is why nobody today needs those silly mobile phone gadgets.
Click to expand...

Zigactly!

Darat said:
There's another argument ..
People only started to think about paranormal powers .. [recently] .. All of those powers disappeared .. we are reduced to a "psi of the gaps"
Click to expand...

I prefer the first argument, it's got evolutionary time on its side. The recent loss of psi? Bah. PsiBahBah! :)

Digging "psi of the gaps."
 
gg5000 said:
I believe that as a real skeptic, one should be critical of the scientific institutions (not the method, of course) because after all, they are only people too, with political views, agendas, budgets, grants to keep, reputations to uphold within their circles, etc.
Click to expand...

Evidence of this crap?
 
gg5000 said:
And that's exactly the thing, Paul C. A. Sheldrake's idea of Morphic Resonance is very interesting, and indeed, like you say, tough to falsify. The homing of pigeons is an interesting example. Nobody TRULY knows exactly how pigeons are able to find their way home from hundreds of miles away. Sheldrake claims to have tested the homing of pigeons in a series of ways:
Click to expand...

Um sample sizes and the usual protocol errors abound in his work, where exactly is the data, morphic resonance might as well be 'fairy dust'.
 
Dancing David said:
Um sample sizes and the usual protocol errors abound in his work, where exactly is the data, morphic resonance might as well be 'fairy dust'.
Click to expand...

This is actually a good point to delve into. The problem is, what is "morhpic resonance"? What are it's properties, what does it do, how does it arise, etc? Where's the data for it? As many if the "explanations" for paranormal phenomena, it's not so much an actual explanation as a diagnosis of exclusion, to borrow a phrase from medicine. But, for a disgnosis of exclusion to be valid at all, every other possibilty needs to be eliminated. So what evidence does seperate morphic resonance from fairy dust? Or quantum entanglement? Or psi-fields? Or extra-dimensional energy? Or any of the dozens of pseudo-scientific ideas that people have proposed as "explanations" for psi?

And of course, this assumes we start with the premise that psi exists, a statement that is so far unsupported by evidence.
 
Sideroxylon said:
Sheldrake apparently at least partially covers that base by citing hundredth monkey effectWP.
Click to expand...

Yes, the usual tactic of syaing "This unsupported stuff over here supports my unsupported stuff".

It's sort of like multiplying by small numbers. It's hard to get someone new to the concept that, unlike most multiplication, if you multiply something by .5 you're going to get a smaller number than you started with.

Or alternatively, if you're building a house with rotted logs, adding more rotted logs isn't going to make it stronger.
 
steenkh said:
Actually, I am not sure that you are entirely right here!
Click to expand...

No analogy is perfect, but generally speaking it's correct. If you keep adding more, you're going to increase the load on what you do have, and they are going to crumble. I perhaps should have phrased it as "if you're building a house with rotted logs, adding more rotted logs doesn't make the first one stronger".

Of course, it actually brings up a good point. You can make it stronger by adding more logs, but only if those logs are sharing the load of the original. In other words, if you bring in other research that studied the same effect as yours in a comparable way, then adding the additoonal data could strengthen your case (depending on the results, accuracy, validity, etc). But that's not what we see....what we see is someone who is told the rotted logs won't hold his house up, so he points to the wet sand he's using as a foundation to say it might stand up. Using borderline or questionable research that must be true to support your research weakens your case, it doesn't strengthen it.
 
gg5000 said:
...Whether his methods to scientifically prove this point are valid or invalid, is beside the point...
Click to expand...
To me this is the entire point with Sheldrake's work.

He does no one any service if he conducts shoddily designed experiments.
The "data" from these types of experiments are next to useless.
 
gg5000 said:
Sheldrake's idea of Morphic Resonance is very interesting, and indeed, like you say, tough to falsify.
Click to expand...
No. Interesting scientific ideas are clearly defined and easily falsified. Morphic Resonance is hard to falsify because it is an incoherent mess.

gg5000 said:
Whether his methods to scientifically prove this point are valid or invalid, is beside the point.
Click to expand...
No, that's the entire point.

I am interested in the core belief that there are natural phenomena that we have yet to explain in scientific ways. After all, things like cancer and any number of other natural phenomena continue to evade solutions and clear understanding, even with the vast amounts of money, research and man-hours devoted to them scientifically.
Click to expand...
We know perfectly well what cancer is. Curing it without otherwise harming the patient is difficult.

I believe that as a real skeptic, one should be critical of the scientific institutions (not the method, of course) because after all, they are only people too, with political views, agendas, budgets, grants to keep, reputations to uphold within their circles, etc.
Click to expand...
Skeptics are critical of bad science. Far more harshly then they are of simple everyday nonsense, too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom