Challenging the Dogma: Innovation vs. Tradition in Science

Hello everyone, Jim here. We're taking a brief two-week break from new episodes to spotlight a couple of golden oldies from the Infinite Loops archive. Years later, these remain some of my favorite conversations. We’ll be back soon with fresh episodes, but in the meantime, enjoy this trip back to February 2024, when we welcomed the one and only Rupert Sheldrake.

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Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of 9 books and over 100 scientific papers. A critic of what he sees as the scientific establishment’s dogmatic dedication to materialism, he is perhaps best known for his theory of “morphic resonance,” via which information and activity can be transferred across space and time. Rupert joins the show to discuss being branded a heretic, how to test for telepathy, his advice for young scientists, and MUCH more!

Important Links:

• Rupert’s Website
• Rupert’s Banned TED Talk
• The Science Delusion; by Rupert Sheldrake
• A New Science of Life; by Rupert Sheldrake
• Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals; by Rupert Sheldrake
• Is The Sun Conscious?; by Rupert Sheldrake (Journal of Consciousness Studies)

Show Notes:

• The Apostate of Scientism
• The Origins of Scientism
• How to Achieve a Phase Change in the Sciences
• Testing for Telepathy & Incentivizing Intuition
• Structural Resistance to Panpsychism
• When Science Gets Personal
• Loosening the Grip of Determinism
• Advice for Young Scientists
• Rupert as Emperor of the World
• MORE!

Books & Articles Mentioned:

• The Science Delusion; by Rupert Sheldrake
• New Science of Life; by Rupert Sheldrake
• Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals; by Rupert Sheldrake
• Is The Sun Conscious?; by Rupert Sheldrake
• The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science; by Robert Anton Wilson
• Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters; by Steven Pinker
• The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature; by Steven Pinker
• Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures; by Merlin Sheldrake
• The End of Faith; by Sam Harris
• The Fifth Science; by Exurb1a
• What the Tortoise Said to Achilles; by Lewis Carroll
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; by Robert M. Pirsig
• The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward; by Benoit B. Mandelbrot & Richard L. Hudson
• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; by Thomas Kuhn