SCIENCE SET FREE

       Rupert Sheldrake’s book, Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery, is a masterful overview of the limitations and myopia of modern day scientific thinking.  Sheldrake begins by describing his early career as a scientist, and then explains his discovery of phenomena that cannot be explained by chemistry or physics.  He says in his preface that he is a scientist and believes in the scientific approach, but that, “Dogmatic ideology, fear-based conformity and institutional inertia are inhibiting scientific creativity.”  He points out that the biggest assumption-turned-dogma is that science has already uncovered most of the important answers.  That is to say that there is no reality except for material reality.  This means there is no such thing as a spirit, consciousness is an illusion, and all living things are just highly complex machines with predictable behavior.  Current scientific theory also holds that the laws of nature are fixed and that the total amount of matter and energy in the universe are always the same.  In his introduction, Sheldrake discusses the history and illogic of the materialist/deterministic viewpoint, the connection with atheism in many scientists’ minds, and the sense that they are involved in a crusade to rid the world of all non-scientific (superstitious) thinking.  He illustrates the naiveté of people who imagine that science is humble, open-minded, and not offended when new facts come along.  He contrasts this with the reality of human scientists who are closed-minded and are quite unwilling to consider any results that rock the boat of mainstream thought.  Chapters 1-10 of the book are devoted to challenging what he sees as the major false assumptions of current scientific thinking.

       Chapter one is about the mechanist theory.  Sheldrake relates how, prior to the 1600s, people assumed the universe was like a living thing, and only after the creation of sophisticated clocks with tiny meshed gears did people begin to use the metaphor of the universe as a giant machine.  Then the model was confused with the reality.  In the minds of the great thinkers of the day, not only did the workings of the universe resemble the movement of a machine; it actually was a giant machine.  The result is an idealized version of particles in space that react with one another like billiard balls on a table, with actions and reactions that can all be calculated with precision.  Sheldrake explains how, prior to Descartes, Europeans assumed that living things possessed spiritual qualities (like a soul) and that non-living things did not, but that after Descartes, it was assumed that living things were just soulless compilations of tiny, non-living components.   This is the essence of the “mechanistic revolution.”  He points out that this mechanist theory is subscribed to by mainstream science, but that it makes little sense and is applied selectively.  For example, if a person really believed 100% in mechanism, it would mean they had no free will to decide anything.  Life as a human being would be totally meaningless because you would know for a fact that every time you seemingly made a choice, you were not really making a decision at all, just going through the motions of a predetermined action.  All the positive qualities that show our true colors and make us who we are, including persistence, devotion, loyalty, and even love, would be reduced to the collision of subatomic particles inside us, over which we have no real control.  Sheldrake points out the hypocrisy of scientists who believe that everyone else is stuck in this deterministic trap, and that everything they say and do is merely a predictable result of the mechanical action of the neurons in their brains, but that when scientists tell us about the mechanist nature of the universe, they are somehow an exception – they are on a lofty mission to share the light of truth with the rest of us.  Sheldrake points out the irony of the situation wherein scientific proponents of a purposeless universe (like the prolific and bombastic atheist, Richard Dawkins) themselves find it impossible to describe life without mentioning purposeful organizing principles.

       Chapter two deals with the scientific belief that the total amount of matter and energy are constant.  First of all, he points out the enormous void in our knowledge that we cover with the terms “dark matter” and “dark energy” to describe the mysterious "stuff" which we currently believe constitutes most of the universe.  He traces these notions of universal constancy from the theories of the ancient Greek atomists down to the present day.  He then points out that the currently-accepted “Big Bang theory,” completely suspends the whole idea of the conservation of matter and energy, yet scientists tend to turn a blind eye to this.  Sheldrake gives examples of inedia: people in medieval and modern times who appear to have lived for many years without eating.  If this is true, then where is the energy coming from to keep these people alive?  The individuals he mentions are primarily devout Hindus or Catholics, and his documentation is highly interesting.  Unfortunately, as with reports of stigmata, spontaneous human combustion, miracle tears from statues, possession cases, miracle cures, and other X-Files-type phenomenon, the reliable verification is not adequate to impress a skeptic.  

       Chapter three assesses the question: “Are the laws of nature fixed?”  Sheldrake properly notes that the very idea of “laws” is a human invention to begin with, which may not be reflected in the nature of the universe.  Humans have a habitual belief in laws, but should we not question our habitual beliefs as well as the laws that we assume exist as immutable truths?  If the universe has been evolving since the “Big Bang” (which we should admit up front that we cannot understand or explain), then isn’t it possible the rules of its operation also change and evolve?  Sheldrake hypothesizes that instead of laws, perhaps the universe operates under something more like “evolving habits.”  He explains the historical development of the idea that the universe is a book written with mathematical language.  Sheldrake presents evidence that some of the so-called constants of the universe have in fact fluctuated over recent time: the Universal Gravitational Constant, the fine-structure constant, and the speed of light, to name three examples.  The definition of a meter is based on an agreed-upon speed of light, but evidence shows that the speed of light has not always been the same.  It seems to have fluctuated by about 20 kilometers per second between 1928 and 1972, first slowing down and then speeding up.  This is assumed to be a constant, so the data supporting a fluctuation here is conveniently ignored.  Sheldrake proposes a hypothesis of “morphic resonance” to explain how the universe operates with a kind of collective memory.  This is a complex seven-part hypothesis that would go a long way to explain those phenomena that are beyond the ability of chemistry and physics to explain.  As an impressive demonstration of a phenomenon that makes more sense according to the concept of morphic resonance, Sheldrake points to the synthesis of new chemicals.  Turanose, for example, was first crystalized in the 1920s, after which it became easier to crystalize.  Sheldrake shares the further examples of xylitol, ampicillin, and Ritonavir, which should have continued to crystallize in the same manner throughout time, but which for some reason created new polymorph forms far more easily.  

       Chapter four examines the question of whether or not matter is unconscious.  This is intimately tied to the issue of whether or not a spirit exists in living things.  Sheldrake explores the enigma of attempting to explain evolution without a belief in a spirit to drive material bodies to survive and create new forms.  If everything is mechanist, soulless, and merely driven by random mutation and natural selection, then all our thoughts and emotions are nothing more than an epiphenomenon of electrical activity in the brain; but isn’t it these thoughts and emotions that actually drives the entire process?  Sheldrake explores the history of philosophy vis-a-vis the notion of the mind and how it works.  He discusses the possibility that mental causation may run backwards in time, directing "past" events to shape a particular "future" outcome.

       Chapter five asks the question: “Is nature purposeless?”  While animals have clear purposes, machines themselves do not (unless programmed to have them by people).  Therefore, if animals are literally nothing more than biological machines, what is the explanation for this discrepancy?  Why do animals have clear goals and purposes?  Richard Dawkins attempts to explain this by saying there are “selfish genes” in our DNA that make living things desire to replicate themselves.  Sheldrake points out that animals have an incredible ability to adjust both their behavior and their own shapes that, at present, defies understanding.  To attempt an explanation, he then enters into a further discussion of his morphogenic field hypothesis and the supposition that waves travel backwards in time.  I was reminded in this section of the seemingly impossible evolution of wings (supposedly through nothing but random mutation and natural selection) for the seeming purpose of flight in so many species – wings which are all but useless until they have reached the stage where they are fully-formed and can actually allow flight.  It is as if the ultimate end was guiding the process from the earliest moment.  Sheldrake gives an interesting example of the complexity of protein folding.  For example, a protein such as ribonuclease naturally folds itself properly in two minutes, but if it had to find the correct configuration by trial and error, it would take an average of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years to get it right.  Some power beyond what we can discover from the reductionist study of the electromagnetic properties of molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles appears to be guiding the operation of these building blocks of life, but what is it?

       Chapter six ponders the question of whether or not all biological inheritance is material.  When we figured out the structure of DNA in the 1950s, it seemed to hold the answer to all programming for biological life forms.  In the 1990s, the human genome was decoded, and yet since then more and more traits seem to be the result of a mysterious concert of gene expression switching on and off, as well as various other epigenetic effects.  Again, Sheldrake postulates that morphic resonance is the best model for understanding this, although he does not go so far as to attempt to explain a mechanism by which this may operate.

       Chapter seven deals with the question of how memories are stored.  Mechanists assume that memories must be stored in the cells of the brain like material traces, just like 1s and 0s are stored in the hard drive of a computer.  The problem is that no amount of scanning or dissecting has yet found any evidence to support this belief.  Sheldrake shares the example of a man who, as a result of hydrocephalus, had a brain only 5% the size of the average man’s, but had scored 126 on an IQ test and had earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.  The idea of resonance may help explain how rats running the same maze configuration finished faster on their first attempt year after year.  This happened in different labs around the world, as if the rats of the present had access to the memories of the other rats from the past who had solved the maze before them.  This is mirrored by the so-called Flynn Effect, whereby average American scores on IQ tests have increased from 75 in 1920 to 100 in 1990.  Sheldrake brings up the possibility of a collective memory, and points out the similarity between this concept and Jung’s belief in a “collective unconscious.”

       Chapter eight addresses the question of whether minds are confined to brains.  Scientific authorities and educational systems teach that this is the case because it is consistent with the mechanist theory.  This view holds that everything we think or feel, as well as our entire concept of identity, is no more than an effect caused by the neural activity in our brains.  Sheldrake cleverly takes Carl Sagan’s famous dictum, “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence,” and turns it around to demand that mechanists produce evidence that the mind is, as they say, nothing more than brain activity.  He goes on to share many test results that suggest people possess extra-sensory perception that alerts them when they are being stared at by another person.    

       Chapter nine asks whether psychic phenomena are real or illusory.  A mechanist clearly believes that all psychic or paranormal phenomena must be impossible.  Sheldrake refers to the growing body of evidence that telepathy, precognition, and other psychic abilities are real.  He points out that it is due to materialist tendencies that we even have discriminatory terms like “paranormal” and “supernatural” at all.  He goes on to list the results of numerous ESP experiments involving card prediction, telepathy, and precognition.  He gives examples of debates he has had over the years with skeptics in which he found they were not only ignorant of the evidence to support the existence of ESP, but that they were not even interested to hear it.  He mentions a 2004 debate he had with Lewis Wolpert in which Wolpert declared that there was zero evidence to support the existence of telepathy, but then refused to even look at the screen as Sheldrake presented the findings of thousands of experiments that suggested otherwise.  In 2005, he debated Jan Nienhuys.  Nienhuys claimed there were errors in the research that Sheldrake presented, but when Sheldrake asked him to specify the nature of the errors, it turned out that his opponent had not bothered to read any of the research.  In 2006, Sheldrake participated in a debate with Richard Dawkins.  Sheldrake says that Dawkins dismissed all the research out of hand, claiming that it would “turn the laws of physics upside down.”  When presented with papers published in scientific journals, Dawkins responded, “I don’t want to discuss evidence.”  The debate ended early when Sheldrake realized that the exchange had been misrepresented as an honest debate, when in fact Dawkins had only meant the meeting to be “a high-grade debunking exercise.”  A recording of their interplay was put into a 2007 series  with the loaded title: Enemies of Reason.  

       Chapter ten asks whether mechanistic medicine is the only kind that works.  Sheldrake notes in this chapter that most scientific studies are buried and their results not revealed to the public, that the much-touted “placebo effect” is actually an unexamined and unexplained mind-over-matter phenomenon that calls into question the entire mechanist theory, and that fewer and fewer new drugs actually outperform the placebo effect (especially in the U.S.).  He hypothesizes that his may be because our belief in the power of drugs has been augmented by all the commercials we have seen in recent years.  He shares the results of hypnosis, including the creation of a blister on the arm when a person under hypnosis was told they were being burned, and hypnotic cures for both ichthyosis and warts.  Evidence suggests that both traditional Chinese medicine and homeopathy can be effective, although they operate under principles that seem nonsensical to a mechanist.  If the mechanist theory is correct, how can that possibly be?

       In chapter 11, Sheldrake explores the issue of objectivity.  He notes that scientists are people who, despite the unblemished, idealized image, are (like everyone else) controlled by financial considerations, reputation, peer pressure, and ingrained cultural stubbornness.  In the scientific community, results that cannot be rationally explained are routinely ignored.  Anomalous data is hidden until the “correct” data comes along that agrees with an established understanding.  Sheldrake discusses the self-fulfilling biases that experimenters bring with them into the laboratory as well as stories of people who seem to either jinx experiments or guarantee their success.  He further considers the issues of publication bias and fraud in scientific publications.

       Chapter 12 is about the future of science.  Sheldrake suggests that we end the “authoritarian structure” of the sciences and stop pretending that science is omniscient.  He notes that the “sciences” of today did not all used to be classified under the same heading until the 1800s, when naturalists, biologists, geologists, pharmacologists, and mathematicians for the first time became collectively known by this moniker.  He observes that students absorb a set of assumptions and doctrines from scientific “popularizers” without even realizing it.  He writes: “These assumptions are not treated as aspects of a philosophy of nature, or as a hypothesis to be tested: they are part of the standard paradigm or consensus reality, protected by taboos against deviant thinking.”  He says that only in science is there anything today that resembles the absolute authority of the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages.  This authority is maintained through a hierarchical system based on strict conformity.  Disagreements are mostly hidden from the public.  Sheldrake suggests that we need more open-mindedness, more debates, and more public participation in determining what scientists are funded to study.  He suggests there should be an ongoing dialog between scientists and religious practitioners about the true nature of reality.  He ends the book with the adroit observation: “Much needs to be discovered and rediscovered, including wisdom.”

       This book is one of the most fascinating I have read in years.  It is chock full of great quotes and anecdotes.  It was interesting to learn, for example, that Crick, the discoverer of the structure of DNA, made it his life’s ambition to “knock the final nail into the coffin of vitalism,” which is the term scientists use for the ultimate heresy of believing there is a mysterious living force in the universe outside the ability of chemistry and physics to describe.  It is funny how quickly and easily people who are supposed to be as dispassionate as Spock about finding the truth can become convinced that they already know the truth and fixate on the idea of crushing all opposing views.  Instead of just doing experiments, reporting results, and making hypotheses, scientists jump to conclusions and get their egos involved in arguing the correctness of their opinion.  In the process of reading this book, a person can clearly see why the scientific establishment is often compared to a priesthood.  I agree completely with Sheldrake’s view, stated in the introduction, that, “It is not anti-scientific to question established beliefs, but central to science itself.”  In many ways, this book is a perfect prequel to Utopia Found.

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