Rupert Sheldrake
11 quotes
Biography
Alfred Rupert Sheldrake is an English author and parapsychology researcher. He proposed the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture that lacks mainstream acceptance and has been widely criticized as pseudoscience.
"Many dogs, cats and horses are loved and cherished, and are even mourned when they die. But pigs, chickens, calves and other animals grown in factory farms are treated in the most brutal and exploitative way, devoid of all affection. They are units in a production line; their only purpose is to produce the maximum amount of food at the minimum cost. Factory farms epitomize the mechanistic spirit. … To justify this treatment, the less-favoured animals have to be regarded as inferior, unworthy of any sentimental attachment. A terrible conflict arises if the exploited animals are considered to have any value in themselves. One way to avoid this conflict is to keep the privileged and the exploited animals in separate categories in our minds. … But if emotions spill over from pets to other animals, there is trouble. People become vegetarians, or even animal rights activists."
"Bad religion is arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. And so is bad science. But unlike religious fundamentalists, scientific fundamentalists do not realize that their opinions are based on faith. They think they know the truth."
"The facts of science are real enough, and so are the techniques that scientists use, and so are the technologies based on them. But the belief system that governs conventional scientific thinking is an act of faith."
"For more than 200 years, materialists have promised that science will eventually explain everything in terms of physics and chemistry. Believers are sustained by the faith that scientific discoveries will justify their beliefs."
"The idea is that there is a kind of memory in nature. Each kind of thing has a collective memory. So, take a squirrel living in New York now. That squirrel is being influenced by all past squirrels."
"In both religion and science, some people are dishonest, exploitative, incompetent and exhibit other human failings."
"Bad religion is arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. And so is bad science. But unlike religious fundamentalists, scientific fundamentalists do not realize that their opinions are based on faith. They think they know the truth."
"Science at its best is an open-minded method of inquiry, not a belief system."
"I went through the standard scientific atheist phase when I was about 14. I bought into that package deal of science equals atheism."
"I have been a scientist for more than 40 years, having studied at Cambridge and Harvard. I researched and taught at Cambridge University, was a research fellow of the Royal Society, and have more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals. I am strongly pro-science."
"The simplest and cheapest of all reforms within institutional science is to switch from the passive to the active voice in writing about science."