Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery
Published by Penguin Random House Audio
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
The bestselling author of Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home offers an intriguing new assessment of modern day science that will radically change the way we view what is possible.
In Science Set Free (originally published to acclaim in the UK as The Science Delusion), Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's most innovative scientists, shows the ways in which science is being constricted by assumptions that have, over the years, hardened into dogmas. Such dogmas are not only limiting, but dangerous for the future of humanity.
According to these principles, all of reality is material or physical; the world is a machine, made up of inanimate matter; nature is purposeless; consciousness is nothing but the physical activity of the brain; free will is an illusion; God exists only as an idea in human minds, imprisoned within our skulls.
But should science be a belief-system, or a method of enquiry? Sheldrake shows that the materialist ideology is moribund; under its sway, increasingly expensive research is reaping diminishing returns while societies around the world are paying the price.
In the skeptical spirit of true science, Sheldrake turns the ten fundamental dogmas of materialism into exciting questions, and shows how all of them open up startling new possibilities for discovery.
Science Set Free will radically change your view of what is real and what is possible.
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Reviews for Science Set Free
61 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book offers a clear exposition of ten of the leading arguments for moving beyond the paradigm of reductionist materialism upon which most scientific experimentation and theory is currently grounded. While Sheldrake does not spend all that much of the book setting forth his hypothesis of morphological fields, he does say enough regarding the relationship of his theory to the philosophy of A. N. Whitehead and the findings of contemporary quantum physics for a lay reader such as myself to grasp - without having read much of his other works - what he is proposing as an alternative explanation of reality. (For a taste of what he is talking about in regard to morphological field theory, one can get sufficient insight by listening to some of his talks and debates on You Tube. But be forewarned there is still little tolerance for Sheldrake's theories among orthodox Darwinian biologists despite the fairly extensive experimental evidence that he has provided. .
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A thrilling call to arms, warning his fellow scientists not to become narrow minded in their pursuit of knowledge.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Many aspects of the cosmos are outstanding mysteries. Sheldrake has novel suggestions as to why. This work is most interesting when putting forward these unconventional ideas, but rather shabby when criticizing establishment values. Clearly he is an aggrieved holist, most comfortable with syntheses of ideas, and at times unappreciative of analyses. The book starts by arguing against what Sheldrake understands to be the existing paradigm of science, a machine-like cosmic analogy he calls the dogma of materialism. He lists ten dominant tenants of this paradigm. As most tenants are conflations of ill-fitting 19th century ideas, he should have found it much easier to demolish his straw-man. Certainly the second half of the book is less awkward and misleading, albeit more speculative. However he presents his comparisons with competing views poorly. Indeed he is often more interesting in suggestive results than the clarity that comes from an analysis of what things mean. His central premise is that there is a Platonic realm of morphic remembrances, alongside the physical world. This realm can and does change the way the cosmos operates.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I didn't read the whole thing. Still, I appreciated the point of view and the fact that someone is questioning scientific dogma. Even if some of his ideas are "out there", it's thought-provoking and we need more thought provokers!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eye-opening, the last unfinished business of the Reformation. Great book!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The discussion of AN Whitehead's ideas on time and space and how they relate to quantum activity is illuminating. Rupert Sheldrake extends this analysis into a convincing claim for the possibility of morphic resonance as an organising principle in evolution and cosmic life. His criticism of materialist science is far more balanced and articulate than the abuse his adversaries hurl at him..
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I picked up this book in it's British edition, "The Science Delusion". Not so much the idea of Rupert Sheldrake, it's author, rather his publishers, as a marketing tactic, positioning against Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion". Sheldrake isn't interested in being in your face confrontational, and make no mistake, he is a believer in the scientific method, as a practicing scientist himself. His issue is dogmatic scientism and the tendency of the institutions that work in the name of science to become every bit as dogmatic and close minded as the religious institutions the Dawkins of the world rail against. He also warns against the idea that science, as it stands now, has "it all figured out" and now it's just filling in the details, pointing out this is not the first time by a long shot this has happened in the history of discovery. Many of those who practice science want to see the universe as a puzzle they are putting the pieces in and want to believe they are about to solve it, rather than just seeing it as a huge mystery that produces a new paradigm shift just when folks think they are figuring it all out. Sheldrake believes we are at another of those moments in history. I tend to agree.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When I first read the ten paradigms Sheldrake examined I realized that I held most of those very reductionist views that Sheldrake criticized without realizing it. At least now I know better what is at stake and I see how to move on and get out of the mental box I didn't even know I was in.
1 person found this helpful