Vision of a Fundamentally Different Future
The following is an except from the book, From Healthcare at a Turning Point: A Roadmap for Change by Rita E. Numerof. It’s the year 2024. It’s hard to believe…
Creationism vs. Evolution: The Debate
Bill Nye and Ken Ham debated the origins of life last night live from the Creationist Museum in Kentucky. The great success of the debate was to inform and raise…
Turtles All the Way Down
I first read the phrase “Turtles All the Way Down” in a book by Stephen Hawking. According to the story, a big name scientist was giving a lecture on astronomy….
Inequality for All
We’re in the biggest economic slump since the Great Depression, and we can’t seem to get out of it. Why? Because, exactly as in the 1920s, so much of the…
Scientists Claim That Quantum Theory Proves Consciousness
A book titled “Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the Nature of the Universe” has stirred up the Internet, because it contained a notion that life…
The 10 Dogmas of Science
The science delusion is the nature of reality in principle, leaving only the details to be filled in. This is a persistent delusion within science. Many times in the history…
Do I have Φ?
Panpsychism, the ancient doctrine that consciousness is universal, offers some lessons in how to think about subjective experience today. Unlike classical panpsychism, not all physical objects have a Φ that…
The Closing of the Scientific Mind
From David Gelernter in Commentary Magazine: “The huge cultural authority science has acquired over the past century imposes large duties on every scientist. Scientists have acquired the power to impress…
Top 25 Science Stories of 2013
[post_intro]From Science News: Last year it was easy to choose a story to lead our annual Top 25 list. The discovery of the Higgs boson was a watershed moment, ending…
Electric Universe 2013: The Tipping Point
This is Part 1 of a talk by Sheldrake at the conference Electric Universe 2013: The Tipping Point, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Many scientists like to think that science already…
The 20 Things I Learned in 2013
That sleep helps clean our brain. Or in the words of the journal Science, “Observations showed that when mice sleep, channels between neurons in their brains expand, allowing cerebrospinal fluid…
To Be Loved or Feared?
In early sixteenth century, Machiavelli asks, “Of cruelty and mercy, and whether it is better to be loved than to be feared or the contrary?” Here is his answer, from…
Blackfish Tonight
Sea World in San Diego amazed me. I was completely mesmerized by the Killer Whales and watched them swim around the pool for most of the day. Tonight, I watched…
The Science of Interconnectedness
Sheldrake proposes that “memory” is inherent in cells, and that life exhibits “evolutionary habits,” a quality that Darwin also noted. “Cells come from other cells and inherit fields of organization”…
Nelson Mandela: 1918 – 2013
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela From CNN: Word of Nelson Mandela’s death spread quickly across the United States,…
The Coca-Cola Co. Does Not need Atlanta
After Martin Luther King Jr. won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, plans for an interracial celebration in still-segregated Atlanta were not initially well supported by the city’s business elite until…
Here We Shall Drag Them
The Harpies’ first appearance in Greek literature is incongruously charming. For Hesiod, they are goddesses of the scudding storm clouds, “lovely-haired,” keeping pace “on their swift wings with the blasts…
Anna Nicole Smith’s Guess Campaign
From BuzzFeed, “The early ’90s ad campaign that made Anna Nicole a household name. In 1993, Anna Nicole Smith secured a contract to replace supermodel Claudia Schiffer as the face…
Democratize Science!
Let the public decide on the fate of 1% of our science budget. In the 19th century, Charles Darwin was just one of the many independent researchers who, not reliant…
A Book for Burning?
[post_intro]John Maddox says of Rupert Sheldrake’s work, “I was so offended by it that I said and I said that while it’s wrong that book should be burned. In practice,…