"Scientist Rupert Sheldrake has dedicated his latest book, Science Set Free, to questioning unexamined assumptions that go hand-in-hand with science. Sheldrake distinguishes the method of scientific inquiry from the materialist worldview with which it is often conflated. Unlike most religious believers, people who put their faith in scientific materialism are often unaware that their beliefs are just that—a matter of faith.
As an undergraduate in biochemistry at Cambridge University, where he later received his doctorate, Rupert Sheldrake was awarded a fellowship to study the philosophy and history of science at Harvard at around the same time that Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) was published. Unlike scientific idealists of the past, Kuhn figured the vicissitudes of history, ideology, and power as playing a central role in the development of science. Sheldrake continues in Kuhn’s tradition. “One of my main concerns,” Sheldrake says, “is the opening up of science.” Such an opening up would likely lead to a more fruitful engagement between science and religion in which, through mutual challenge and shared exploration, they might enrich and alter one another."
The full featured interview in Tricycle is here.
http://www.tricycle.com/feature/question-faith
It's an intelligent informative read.
I simply offer it for those interested.
Originally posted by Taoman "Scientist Rupert Sheldrake has dedicated his latest book, Science Set Free, to questioning unexamined assumptions that go hand-in-hand with science. Sheldrake distinguishes the method of scientific inquiry from the materialist worldview with which it is often conflated. Unlike most religious believers, people who put their faith in scientific materialism are ...[text shortened]... tion-faith
It's an intelligent informative read.
I simply offer it for those interested.
I think he summed up the problem with the majority of scientists today in the following three paragraphs:
Scientists are subject to all the usual constraints of human social life, including peer group pressure and the need to conform to the norms of the group. Kuhn’s arguments were largely based on the history of science, but sociologists of science have taken his insights further by studying science as it is actually practiced, looking at the ways that scientists build up networks of support, use resources and results to increase their power and influence, and compete for funding, prestige, and recognition.
The ideal of free inquiry portrays scientists as open-minded seekers of truth, not ordinary people competing for funds and prestige, constrained by peer group pressures and hemmed in by prejudices and taboos. Yet naive as it is, I take this ideal of free inquiry seriously.
How did we find our way from open inquiry to an ideologically driven approach? Materialist philosophy achieved its dominance within institutional science in the second half of the 19th century, and it was closely linked to the rise of atheism in Europe. Atheists of the 21st Century, like their predecessors, take the doctrines of materialism to be established scientific facts, not just assumptions.
No one needs to read any more of that article, for that last sentence sums up the problem that has evaded the scientific social structure of scientist today.
Originally posted by RJHinds I think he summed up the problem with the majority of scientists today in the following three paragraphs:
[b]Scientists are subject to all the usual constraints of human social life, including peer group pressure and the need to conform to the norms of the group. Kuhn’s arguments were largely based on the history of science, but sociologists of science ha ...[text shortened]... he problem that has evaded the scientific social structure of scientist today.
The Instructor
It's there for an intelligent read of the issues. I simply share it.
I've always thought science is a man eater - before penicillin there were few uses to help you but many to kill you - it has no moral backbone, it doesn't need one when they are exploring new ideas, but in application its lack of morals is still very telling today, we still get sold such rubbish.
to my mind one of the great shames of chemistry is the most useful drug of the 20th century was found by a biologist! ... whilst the chemists made bombs!
Faith and Science examined.
25 May '13 02:05
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