More on science's delusion

There are many phenomena in the world, many experiences that we all have had (and will continue to have) that the scientific, materialistic worldview cannot and will not be able to explain. Any probability specialist worth his or her salt will tell you that the Universe isn't old enough in seconds to account for the random combination of anything into anything looking the least bit like life, let alone what we know as human life. The mere fact that the known visible universe only accounts for 4% of the matter and energy that there should be (according to physicists' calculations) leaves the experts stumped. Today's science can't tell you how we can see, how any of our senses really work, how thoughts and memories are generated or stored, or, most importantly, why we're even conscious at all. To some current philosophers of mind, consciousness is simply an illusion: it shouldn't be there, we don't know how it got here, so in essence, we should just ignore it. It doesn't matter because it isn't matter. I don't know about you, but I can't help but feel that the flat earth is not far behind. Two-thousand years of "scientific" and philosophic inquiry and that's all we have. Not an outstanding show.

The problem with basing "science" on these dogmas, as Sheldrake calls them, is that what most of us naively understand science to be isn't really practiced anymore. When I was going to school, we were told that science was a rigorous, structured way of exploring, testing, and validating the world. It conducted experiments, collected data and facts and combined them into theories that could further be tested, validated or falsified. When enough data was collected that no longer fit with the existing explanation, the theory was revised, new hypotheses were formulated and everyone moved forward again. Unfortunately, that is not always the case any longer. Not all questions worth asking are even permitted to be asked. It's sad really, because we are limiting ourselves before we even start. When certain questions are simply out-of-bounds, you have to start asking yourself "why"? At least I know that I do.

The parallels to the Church of the Middle Ages are overwhelming: the sun revolves around the earth/everything consists of matter; the earth is flat/there is no goal or purpose to existence; the cosmos is eternal/mass and energy are conserved. No questions necessary. The answers have been conveniently predetermined. And, the powers that control these answers see to it that even nascent challenges are simply nipped in the bud.

Sheldrake's point is that we must now rise up and resist the dogma. If we want to know what is what, we need to challenge the established orthodoxy. We need to demand that science live up to its true nature, that it, once again, become a way of knowing and understanding the world and everything in it. There can't be unaskable questions. Any question that can be asked deserves an answer ... or at least the reasonable, sensible search for one.

And so, the next time, we'll take a similar look at "the dismal science", economics, to see how it measures up.