In ‘The God Delusion’ Richard Dawkins used science to bash God, but here Rupert Sheldrake shows that Dawkins’ understanding of what science can do is in fact old-fashioned and founded on a number of false ideas/concepts.
‘The science delusion’ challenges the idea that science already understands the nature of reality and that the fundamental questions have already been answered, leaving only the details to be filled in.
In this book (published in the US as Science Set Free), Dr Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world’s most innovative scientists, shows that science is being constricted by assumptions that have now hardened into dogmas. The ‘scientific worldview’ has become a belief system based on the notion that all reality is material or physical. The world is therefore a machine, made up of dead matter. Nature is purposeless. Consciousness is nothing but the physical activity of the brain. Free will is an illusion. God exists only as an idea in human minds, imprisoned within our skulls.
Sheldrake examines these dogmas scientifically, and shows persuasively that science would be better off without them: freer, more interesting, and certainly more fun. If we are to fulfill our potential and better understand our reason(s) for being here, then we need to keep our minds open, only then can our uncertainty take us to more certain ground.