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Posts tagged ‘skeptics’

Apr 14

Inconvenient Facts in Physics

There is an interesting article on Suppressed Science about the bizarre belief that science has just about gotten it all wrapped up. Many scientists believe that they are somehow on the verge of knowing everything. I know that sounds laughable but this is a real position taken by many within the scientific community. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Science is in a state of crisis. Where free inquiry, natural curiosity and open-minded discussion and consideration of new ideas should reign, a new orthodoxy has emerged. This ‘new inquisition’, as it has been called by Robert Anton Wilson consists not of cardinals and popes, but of the editors and reviewers of scientific journals, of leading authorities and self-appointed “skeptics”, and last but not least of corporations and governments that have a vested interest in preserving the status quo, and it is just as effective in suppressing unorthodox ideas as the original.

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Apr 14

Chris Carter on Skeptiko

Chris Carter is on this week’s Skeptiko podcast. Rupert Sheldrake wrote the Forward to Carter’s book Parapsychology & The Skeptics and said this of the book: “A masterly guide to the frontiers of science, belief and exploration. Carter leads us through the interplays of dogma, speculation and empirical research in a stimulating way. The controversy is intense because the implications for the scientific understanding of nature and of mind are so far reaching. If you want to know the current state of play, this is the book for you.”

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Sep 6

Parapsychology and The Skeptics

Sheldrake has written the Forward for a new book, Parapsychology and The Skeptics, by Chris Carter (not the X-Files Chris Carter), on the history of dogmatic skepticism and parapsychology. The book opens with a very interesting anecdote from the seventeenth century – when people believed that balls of fire came hurtling to Earth from space – believers called these “meteorites”. However, because there was not a theory that could accommodate rocks falling from space, the experts agreed that it was obviously a mass delusion. Of course, this still happens today. If the facts don’t fit the theory, to hell with the facts.

In the Forward, Sheldrake writes, “The kind of skepticism Carter is writing about is not the normal healthy kind on which all science depends, but arises from a belief that the existence of psychic phenomena is impossible; they contradict the established principles of science, and if they were to exist they would overthrow science as we know it, causing chaos and confusion.” This looks like a great book. I plan on picking up a copy. I will try to write up a brief review later this month.

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