DNA: Shutterstock Beyond the Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake The “scientific worldview” is im- Yet in the second decade of the mensely influential because the twenty-first century, when science sciences have been so success- and technology seem to be at the ful. No one can fail to be awed by peak of their power, when their in- their achievements, which touch all fluence has spread all over the world our lives through technologies and and when their triumph seems indis- through modern medicine. Our intel- putable, unexpected problems are lectual world has been transformed disrupting the sciences from within. through an immense expansion Most scientists take it for granted of our knowledge, down into the that these problems will eventually most microscopic particles of matter be solved by more research along and out into the vastness of space, established lines, but some, in- with hundreds of billions of galax- cluding myself, think that they are ies in an ever-expanding universe. symptoms of a deeper malaise. Sci-

12 ence is being held back by centuries- bering robots”, in ’ old assumptions that have hardened vivid phrase, with brains that are into dogmas. The sciences would be like genetically programmed com- better off without them: freer, more puters. interesting, and more fun. 2. All matter is unconscious. It has The biggest scientific delusion no inner life or subjectivity or point of all is that science already knows of view. Even human consciousness the answers. The details still need is an illusion produced by the mate- working out, but the fundamental rial activities of brains. questions are settled, in principle. 3. The total amount of matter and Contemporary science is based on energy is always the same (with the the claim that all reality is material exception of the , when or physical. There is no reality but all the matter and energy of the material reality. Consciousness is universe suddenly appeared). a by-product of the physical activ- 4. The laws of are fixed. ity of the brain. Matter is uncon- They are the same today as they scious. is purposeless. were at the beginning, and they God exists only as an idea in human will stay the same forever. minds, and hence in human heads. 5. Nature is purposeless, and evo- These beliefs are powerful not lution has no goal or direction. because most scientists think about 6. All biological inheritance is ma- them critically, but because they terial, carried in the genetic mate- don’t. The facts of science are real rial, DNA, and in other material enough, and so are the techniques structures. that scientists use, and so are 7. Minds are inside heads and are the technologies based on them. nothing but the activities of brains. But the belief system that gov- When you look at a tree, the image erns conventional scientific think- of the tree you are seeing is not ing is an act of faith, grounded in “out there”, where it seems to be, a nineteenth century ideology. but inside your brain. 8. Memories are stored as material The scientific creed traces in brains and are wiped out Here are the ten core beliefs that at death. most scientists take for granted: 9. Unexplained phenomena like 1. Everything is essentially mechani- are illusory. cal. Dogs, for example, are complex 10. Mechanistic medicine is the mechanisms, rather than living only kind that really works. organisms with goals of their own. Even people are machines, “lum- Together, these beliefs make up the

13 philosophy or ideology of material- mechanical?” The assumption that ism, whose central assumption is matter is unconscious becomes “Is that everything is essentially mate- matter unconscious?” And so on. rial or physical, even minds. This belief-system became dominant The credibility crunch for the within science in the late nineteenth “scientific worldview” century, and is now taken for grant- For more than 200 years, materi- ed. Many scientists are unaware alists have promised that science that is an assumption; will eventually explain everything they simply think of it as science, or in terms of physics and chemistry. the scientific view of reality, or the Science will prove that living organ- scientific worldview. They are not isms are complex machines, minds actually taught about it, or given are nothing but brain activity and a chance to discuss it. They absorb nature is purposeless. Believers are it by a kind of intellectual osmosis. sustained by the faith that scientific In everyday usage, materialism discoveries will justify their beliefs. refers to a way of life devoted en- The philosopher of science Karl Pop- tirely to material interests, a preoc- per called this stance “promissory cupation with wealth, possessions materialism” because it depends and luxury. These attitudes are no on issuing promissory notes for dis- doubt encouraged by the materi- coveries not yet made.2 Despite all alist philosophy, which denies the the achievements of science and existence of any spiritual realities technology, materialism is now fac- or non-material goals, but in this ing a credibility crunch that was un- article I am concerned with materi- imaginable in the twentieth century. alism’s scientific claims, rather than In 1963, when I was studying its effects on lifestyles. In the spirit biochemistry at Cambridge Univer- of radical scepticism, each of these sity, I was invited to a series of pri- ten doctrines can be turned into vate meetings with Francis Crick and a question, as I show in my book Sydney Brenner in Brenner's rooms The Science Delusion1 (called Sci- in King's College, along with a few ence Set Free in the US). Entirely of my classmates. Crick and Brenner new vistas open up when a widely had recently helped to “crack” the accepted assumption is taken as genetic code. Both were ardent ma- the beginning of an enquiry, rather terialists and Crick was also a mili- than as an unquestionable truth. tant atheist. They explained there For example, the assumption that were two major unsolved prob- nature is machine-like or mechani- lems in biology: development and cal becomes a question: “Is nature consciousness. They had not been

14 solved because the people who or it is just another way of talk- worked on them were not molecu- ing about brain activity. However, lar biologists—nor very bright. Crick among contemporary researchers and Brenner were going to find the in neuroscience and consciousness answers within 10 years, or maybe studies there is no consensus about 20. Brenner would take develop- the nature of minds. Leading jour- mental biology, and Crick conscious- nals such as Behavioural and Brain ness. They invited us to join them. Sciences and the Journal of Con- Both tried their best. Brenner was sciousness Studies publish many awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002 for articles that reveal deep problems his work on the development of a with the materialist doctrine. The tiny worm, Caenorhabdytis elegans. philosopher David Chalmers has Crick corrected the manuscript of called the very existence of subjec- his final paper on the brain the day tive experience the “hard problem”. before he died in 2004. At his fu- It is hard because it defies explana- neral, his son Michael said that what tion in terms of mechanisms. Even if made him tick was not the desire to we understand how eyes and brains be famous, wealthy or popular, but respond to red light, the experience “to knock the final nail into the cof- of redness is not accounted for. fin of .” (Vitalism is the the- In biology and psychology the ory that living organisms are truly credibility rating of materialism alive, and not explicable in terms is falling. Can physics ride to the of physics and chemistry alone.) rescue? Some materialists pre- Crick and Brenner failed. The fer to call themselves physical- problems of development and ists, to emphasize that their hopes consciousness remain unsolved. depend on modern physics, not Many details have been discovered, nineteenth-century theories of mat- dozens of genomes have been se- ter. But physicalism’s own cred- quenced, and brain scans are ever ibility rating has been reduced by more precise. But there is still no physics itself, for four reasons: proof that life and minds can be First, some physicists insist that explained by physics and chem- cannot be istry alone (Chapters 2, 5 and 9). formulated without taking into ac- The fundamental proposition count the minds of observers. They of materialism is that matter is the argue that minds cannot be reduced only reality. Therefore conscious- to physics because physics presup- ness is nothing but brain activity. poses the minds of physicists.3 It is either like a shadow, an “epi- Second, the most ambitious phenomenon”, that does nothing, unified theories of physical reality,

15 string and M-theories, with ten and parent laws of our universe as eleven dimensions respectively, take the unique possible consequence science into completely new terri- of a few simple assumptions tory. Strangely, as Stephen Hawk- may have to be abandoned.5 ing tells us in his book The Grand Some physicists are deeply scepti- Design (2010), “No one seems to cal about this entire approach, as know what the ‘M’ stands for, but the theoretical physicist Lee Smo- it may be ‘master’, ‘miracle’ or ‘mys- lin shows in his book The Trouble tery’”. According to what Hawk- With Physics: The Rise of String ing calls “model-dependent real- Theory, the Fall of a Science and ism”, different theories may have What Comes Next (2008).6 String to be applied in different situations. theories, M-theories and “model- “Each theory may have its own dependent realism” are a shaky version of reality, but according to foundation for materialism or physi- model-dependent realism, that is calism or any other belief system. acceptable so long as the theories Third, since the beginning of agree in their predictions when- the twenty-first century, it has be- ever they overlap, that is, when- come apparent that the known ever they can both be applied”.4 kinds of matter and energy make String theories and M-theories up only about four percent of are currently untestable, so “mod- the universe. The rest consists of el-dependent realism” can only be “dark matter” and “dark ener- judged by reference to other mod- gy”. The nature of 96 percent of els, rather than by experiment. It physical reality is literally obscure. also applies to countless other uni- Fourth, the Cosmological An- verses, none of which has ever been thropic Principle asserts that if the observed. As Hawking points out, laws and constants of nature had M-theory has solutions that al- been slightly different at the mo- low for different universes with ment of the Big Bang, biological different apparent laws, depend- life could never have emerged, ing on how the internal space is and hence we would not be here curled. M-theory has solutions to think about it. So did a divine that allow for many different in- mind fine-tune the laws and con- ternal spaces, perhaps as many as stants in the beginning? To avoid 10500, which means it allows for a creator God emerging in a new 10500 different universes, each guise, most leading cosmologists with its own laws.… The origi- prefer to believe that our universe nal hope of physics to produce a is one of a vast, and perhaps infi- single theory explaining the ap- nite, number of parallel universes,

16 all with different laws and con- many new possibilities arise. And stants, as M-theory also suggests. many of them raise new possibili- We just happen to exist in the one ties for dialogues with religious tra- that has the right conditions for us.7 ditions.10 Here are a few examples. This multiverse theory is the ul- Statistical research has shown timate violation of Ockham's Ra- that people who attend religious zor, the philosophical principle that services regularly tend to live lon- “entities must not be multiplied be- ger, have better health and are less yond necessity”, or in other words prone to depression than those who that we should make as few as- do not. Also, the practices of prayer sumptions as possible. It also has and meditation often have benefi- the major disadvantage of being cial effects on health and longev- untestable.8 And it does not even ity.11 How do these practices work? succeed in getting rid of God. An Are the effects purely psychological infinite God could be the God of or sociological? Or does the con- an infinite number of universes.9 nection with a larger spiritual real- Materialism provided a seem- ity confer a greater capacity to heal ingly simple, straightforward and an enhancement of wellbeing? worldview in the late nineteenth If organisms at all levels of com- century, but twenty-first century plexity are in some sense alive with science has left it far behind. Its their own purposes, this implies that promises have not been fulfilled, the earth, the solar system, our gal- and its promissory notes have axy, and indeed all the stars, have been devalued by hyperinflation. lives and purposes of their own. And I am convinced that the sciences so may the entire universe.12 The are being held back by assumptions cosmic evolutionary process may that have hardened into dogmas, have inherent purposes or ends, maintained by powerful taboos. and the cosmos may have a mind These beliefs protect the citadel of or consciousness. Since the universe established science, but act as bar- itself is evolving and developing, the riers against open-minded think- mind or consciousness of the uni- ing. They prevent serious dialogues verse must be evolving and devel- with other cultures and religious oping too. Is this cosmic mind the traditions, which are dismissed as same as God? Perhaps only if God “unscientific” or “superstitious”. is conceived of in a pantheistic spirit as the soul or mind of the universe, New dialogues with religions or of nature. In the Christian tradi- As the sciences free themselves from tion, the world soul is not identical the constrictions of materialism, with God, whose being transcends

17 the universe. For example, the early sion of the universe is driven by the Christian theologian Origen (c.184- ongoing creation of “dark energy” 253) thought of the world soul as from the universal gravitational field the Logos, endlessly creative, which or from the “quintessence field”.14 gave rise to the world and the pro- If the laws of nature are more cesses of development within it. like habits, and there is an inher- The Logos was an aspect of God, ent memory within the natural not the whole of God, whose be- world,15 how does this relate to ing transcended the universe.13 If the principle of karma in instead of one universe there are and Buddhism, a chain of cause many, then the divine being would and effect that implies a kind of include and transcend them all. memory in nature? In some schools The universe is evolving and is of thought, as in the Lankavatra Su- the arena of continuing creativity. tra of Mahayana Buddhism, there Creativity is not confined to the ori- is a cosmic or universal memory.16 gin of the universe, as in Deism, but If minds are not stored as ma- is an ongoing part of the evolution- terial traces in brains, but depend ary process, expressed in all realms on a process of resonance, then of nature, including human societ- memories themselves may not be ies, cultures and minds. Although extinguished at death, although the the creativity expressed in all these body through which they are nor- realms may have an ultimately divine mally retrieved decays.17 Is there source, there is no need to think of some other way in which these God as an external designing mind. memories can continue to act? Can In the Judeo-Christian tradition, some non-bodily form of conscious- God imbued the natural world with ness survive the death of the body creativity too, as in the first chapter and still gain access to an individ- in the book of Genesis, where he ual’s memories, conscious or un- called forth life from the earth and conscious, as all religions suppose? the seas (Genesis, 1: 11,20,24) - a If minds are not confined to very different image from the engi- brains, how do these human minds neering God of a mechanistic uni- relate to the minds of higher-level verse. And in a creative, evolving systems of organization, like the universe there is no reason why the solar system, the galaxy, the uni- appearance of matter and energy verse and the mind of God? Are should be confined to the very first mystical experiences just what they instant, as in the standard Big Bang seem to be: connections between theory. Indeed, some cosmologists human minds and larger, more in- propose that the continued expan- clusive forms of consciousness?

18 If human minds, individually imagined in the past. For example, and collectively, make contact with only in the nineteenth century were minds of higher-level minds, includ- the great sweep of biological evo- ing the ultimate consciousness of lution and the aeons of geological God, to what extent can they influ- times recognized, and only in the ence the evolutionary process, or twentieth century were galaxies out- be influenced by the divine will? In side our own discovered, along with an evolutionary, living universe, are the vast expanse of time from the humans merely part of an unfold- Big Bang to the present. The scienc- ing process on one isolated planet, es evolve, and so do religions. No re- or does human consciousness play ligion is the same today as it was at a larger role in cosmic evolution, the time of its founder. Instead of the in some way connected to minds bitter conflicts and mutual distrust in other parts of the universe? caused by the materialist worldview, All religious traditions grew up we are entering an era in which sci- in a pre-scientific era. The sciences ences and religions may enrich each have revealed far more of the natu- other through shared explorations. ral world than anyone could have Notes 1 Sheldrake, R., 2012, The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry, London: Coro- net. 2 In Popper, K. R., and Eccles, J. C., 1977, The Self and Its Brain, Berlin: Springer Interna- tional. 3 E.g. D’Espagnat, B., 1976, Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Reading, MA: Benjamin. 4 Hawking, S., and Mlodinow, L., 2010, The Grand Design: New Answers to the Ultimate Questions of Life, London: Bantam Press, p. 117. 5 Ibid., pp. 118-119. 6 Smolin, L., 2006, The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Sci- ence, and What Comes Next, London: Allen Lane. 7 Carr, B. (ed.), 2007, Universe or Multiverse?, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Greene, B., 2011, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cos- mos, London: Allen Lane. 8 Ellis, G., 2011, ‘The untestable multiverse’, Nature, 469, pp. 295-295. 9 Collins, in Carr (ed.), 2007, op. cit. pp. 459-480. 10 See for example my own explorations with the theologian in Shel- drake, R. and Fox, M., 1996, Natural Grace: Dialogues on Science and Spirituality, Lon- don: Bloomsbury, and Fox, M. and Sheldrake, R., 1996, The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm Where Science and Spirit Meet, San Francisco, Harper. 11 Discussed in Sheldrake, 2012, op. cit., Chapter 10. 12 Ibid., Chapter 1. 13 Tarnas, 1991, Chapter 3. 14 Sheldrake, 2012, Chapter 2. 15 Ibid., Chapter 3. 16 Suzuki, D.T., 1998, Studies in the Lakavatara Sutra, New Delhi: Munshiram Manohar- lal Publishers. 17 Sheldrake, 2012, op. cit., Chapter 7.

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