Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Rupert Sheldrake responds to his critics

10 comments:

Doctor Logic said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake

"Sheldrake denies that DNA contains a blueprint of morphological development."

http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/psychicdogreply.pdf

Leonhard said...

Sheldrake spends a little time arguing that Wiseman had a selective bias in the duplicate experiment he performed on whether dogs could anticipate the arrival of their owner. Sheldrake also claims that Wiseman's results are basically identical to his own, even stronger. Apparently Wiseman ditched some datasets, on the basis that he had set off a 'false alarm'. The interviewer doesn't dig deeper into this. Sheldrake also seems bitter that someone else attempted to duplicate his research, going so far as referring to Wiseman's research 'parasitic'.

After that its a tedious back and forth free form rant between Sheldrake and the interviewer about supposed materialists (as well as capitalists) quelching any hope of a science of the paranormal. All dissenters of the paranormal are thoroughly demonized. Speculations then go on about the psychology of Wiseman, and whether Science has reached a dead end, citing handwavingly disappointments about The Genome Projects, String Theory and Big Pharma new expensive versions of old types of medicine.

I'll see if I can't dig out something about Wiseman, and I'll look for comments from him on this. However the interview was a rather poor form of Sheldrake. He sounds very much like the crackpot, his critics has painted him as.

Blue Devil Knight said...

100% I agree with anonymous.

Anonymous said...

...is it just me or is anon's comment written completely in Japanese? what does BDK agree with?

Victor Reppert said...

You really think so?

Papalinton said...

Anonymous
It looks like a song or a poem to me. A lot of repeated cadence.

Anonymous said...

I'm afraid I must disagree with BDK on this one. -- Bilbo in anonymous, anonymous mode.

finney said...

Whatever it is has a lot of smiley faces. It must agree with you.

wayfarer said...

I have met Dr Sheldrake, and he is a gentleman and a scholar. I wouldn't go near serious discussion of the paranormal, thought, it is subjected to relentless vilification from a coterie of committed materialists, to whom the establishment of a single genuine instance of something like telepathic communication is a mortal threat.

It only has to happen once.

Leonhard said...

Oh get over yourself Jeeprs.