why science is wrong… about almost everything — review by Society for Psychical Research

Well, I woudn't call neither Alex nor his style "robust" or 'merciless". I consider him tolerant and patient enough to remain quite polite dealing with the worst kinds of misinformed and uninformed "skeptics". And the ridiculously weak level of argumentation presented by such type of "skeptics" does not need to be specially shown or emphasised by Alex: it is obvious to anyone but to such "skeptics" themselves. It is a kind of self-debunking. ;)



Never met one? Hmmm... Probably he never encountered personally a pair of guys known as R. Dawkins and D. Dennet. Those are well-known to have views which are noticeably similar to those described by Alex.

However, I have to agree with Tom that Alex is indeed a bit too harsh to atheists in general. Beyond Dawkins and Dennet, atheist ranks include people like Raymond Tallis and Thomas Nagel, who do not think that people are biological robots, or that our life is meaningless, or that human values are illusory. Such atheists are actually closer to spiritual people than to the hardcore New Anti-Theist crowd.

I also have the idea that one can be ethical, and consider life meaninful no matter if you are atheist, agnostic, religious or in favor of scientific spirituality. In fact I belong to a family of scientists who are atheist but still have behaved in the best of ways and lead meaningful lifes. I look at them with a certain sorrow because of their self-inflicted narrowmindedness to adjust to the established science with is provability, mainly because I suppose that the idea of consciousness being fundamental also creates a lot of uncertainty. It is a way of ajusting to a more concrete world instead of an abstract one.
 
I think it is rather superficial to judge a book by the title
Indeed so. However, titles are sometimes chosen by the publisher with the aim of drawing the book to the attention of an anticipated target audience. It isn't so much a question of it being a good or a bad thing, merely a practicality of marketing.
 
Great conversation, interesting book review and great responses.

Alex, i thought the "wrong... about ALMOST everything" was the publisher's suggestion and not your original choice.

however, given that much - I was intrigued by the frame - yes, science is fundamentally wrong, but it's still right about things like gravity.

Yes, that's true - but what it's "right" about appears so overwhelming to so many because they (we?) are not aware of the vast almost infinite inner reaches of the universe.

As a psychologist who has conducted psychological research and has studied Sri Aurobindo for 40 years (and meditated that long too), I can tell you, conventional academic psychologists know almost nothing about the mind or consciousness, and if recent reports of failure to replicate are even remotely accurate, more and more people are starting to see this.

if you think medicine is a science, you have to figure - if physiological scientists can't even agree on whether coffee (chocolate, hi fat, lo fat, hi carbs, lo carbs, etc etc etc etc) are good or bad for you - are we really going to trust them in more complex areas such as evolutionary biology?


And physics - what information about the universe do you get from physics? Eddington said it beautifully: pointer readings. Numbers, complete abstractions, the triumph of the abstracting left hemisphere. As an earlier commenter said, it's "correct" it's valuable but it's utterly trivial.

So technically speaking, or perhaps, "strictly" speaking - Alex is exactly right - science is "wrong" about "ALMOST" everything (it gets superficial measurements, like the one about gravity quoted above, correct, but you know what? so what. The materialist will yell at me and say, "WELL THEN STOP USING YOUR COMPUTER" and my response will be, get me some land outside of Asheville and help me learn to grow my own produce and i'l be happy to stop:>))

I'll let Sri Aurobindo have the last word. This is from a letter he wrote to a disciple in the early 1930s:

The more you go inward or upward, the more the view of things changes and the outer knowledge Science organises takes its real and very limited place. Science, like most mental and external knowledge, gives you only truth of process.

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I would add that it cannot give you even the whole truth of process; for you seize some of the ponderables, but miss the all-important imponderables; you get, hardly even the how, but the conditions under which things happen in Nature.

After all the triumphs and marvels of Science the explaining principle, the rationale, the significance of the whole is left as dark, as mysterious and
even more mysterious than ever. [Note: this is the part where I think it's legitimate to say science is "wrong" - it makes the world less comprehensible, not more so] The scheme it has built up of the evolution not only of this rich and vast and variegated material world, but of life and consciousness and mind and their workings out of a brute mass of electrons, identical and varied only in arrangement and number, is an irrational magic more baffling than any the most mystic imagination could conceive.

Science in the end lands us in a paradox effectuated, an organised and rigidly determined accident, an impossibility that has somehow happened,– it has shown us a new, a material Maya, aghaṭana-ghaṭana-paṭīyasī, very clever at bringing about the impossible, a miracle that cannot logically be and yet somehow is there actual, irresistibly organised, but still irrational and inexplicable.

And this is evidently because Science has missed something essential; it has seen and scrutinised what has happened and in a way how it has happened
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, but it has shut its eyes to something that made this impossible possible, something it
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is there to express. There is no fundamental significance in things if you miss the Divine Reality; for you remain embedded in a huge surface crust of manageable and utilisable appearance.

It is the magic of the Magician you are trying to analyse, but only when you enter into the consciousness of the Magician himself can you begin to experience the true origination, significance and circles of the Lila. I say “begin” because the
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Divine Reality is not so simple that at the first touch you can know all of it or put it into a single formula; it is the Infinite
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and opens before you an infinite knowledge to which all Science put together is a bagatelle.

But still you do touch the essential, the eternal behind things and in the light of That all begins to be profoundly luminous, intimately intelligible.
 
Note: this is the part where I think it's legitimate to say science is "wrong" - it makes the world less comprehensible, not more so
thx for this Don. this last point is a good one. gets at the two ways to be wrong... i.e. incomplete versus, versus leading us away from what's right.
 
Tom Ruffles from the Society for Psychical Research has published a review of Why Science is Wrong… About Almost everything. First off, glad Tom reviewed it… look forward to the dialog it might generate. One point from the review I wanted to respond to has to do with the book’s title. There was no comment section after the review so I have done it here.

http://whyscienceiswrong.com/review-by-society-for-psychical-research/

Instead of saying that science is wrong about almost everything, I would rather say that "science is almost wrong about almost everything" because science is also partially right about almost everything, so there would be no need to generalise.
 
"because science is also partially right about almost everything"

That's a bit of a cop-out though. It omits to mention two important details. One, there are certain areas where science is incapable of telling us anything at all, there are some matters where it is not applicable. Two, science is practised by people. People, both individually and collectively behave in fallible ways. Over and over again I've heard it claimed (here and there, not just on this forum, but in other places too) that science is self-correcting. That seems a lofty ideal, not necessarily reflective of the real world. Often, in any field it is not established processes and procedures which bring progress, but a hefty kick up the backside is what is called for.
 
"because science is also partially right about almost everything"

That's a bit of a cop-out though. It omits to mention two important details. One, there are certain areas where science is incapable of telling us anything at all, there are some matters where it is not applicable. Two, science is practised by people. People, both individually and collectively behave in fallible ways. Over and over again I've heard it claimed (here and there, not just on this forum, but in other places too) that science is self-correcting. That seems a lofty ideal, not necessarily reflective of the real world. Often, in any field it is not established processes and procedures which bring progress, but a hefty kick up the backside is what is called for.

I agree with both your details. Both those details create major problems. Humans being can't live without a 'why' in living. That idea could the origin of stories of beginnings. Narratives that answer questions such as, Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where do we go after we die? These narratives become a culture and humans become nurtured in whatever culture they are born. Modern Science obviously contains values through and through. There is no way of relating that doesn't contain values, which are absorbed unconsciously (There are metaphysics built into the framework of science) Cultures tend be self-fulfilling. As one writer suggests necessities become virtues. Science developed with economics and other values forming a gestalt. (I am simplifying a more complex process in many ways.) There was a redefinition of the human being, one that fit the need of homoeconomicus. Whatever theories come out of a culture they tend represent that culture. A good example is Darwins ideas.
The second detail is related. Because one's reality becomes the reality of the culture , everyone takes much for granted. As you wrote science has a 'lofty ideal' just as religious systems do. Here are two quotes
Polanyi wrote "people who do believe in science do not usually regard this as an personal act of faith. They consider themselves as submitting to evidence that by its nature compels their assent and which has the power to compel a measure of assent from any rational human being.” In an article about Lynn Margulis, the author Dorian Sagan (who is Lynn's son) writes "even in science that has not been co-opted by government or corporate politico-financial agendas, there is significant resistance to new ideas...revising the basic precepts of a field not only makes the old guard look bad, it forces them if a new paradigm is accepted to relearn everything they thought they knew. It not only strips them of their identity as authorities, but threatens to dismantle their field and potentially their job."
 
Alex, i thought the "wrong... about ALMOST everything" was the publisher's suggestion and not your original choice.

however, given that much - I was intrigued by the frame - yes, science is fundamentally wrong, but it's still right about things like gravity.

Well....... First of all, Newton didn't explain gravity, he provided an accurate (at least in his day) inverse square law that allowed one to calculate gravity.

General Relativity sort of explains gravity, if one believes it. It is now the bedrock of lots of further theory, so science has to treat it as absolutely true - so when the individual stars in galaxies are found to rotate in a way that isn't consistent with NG or GR, dark matter had to be invented! Here is a talk by Ron Hatch, who was a designer of the GPS system:

First his credentials:

http://wiki.naturalphilosophy.org/wiki/ronald-r-hatch/

The talk (which becomes very heavy going):


I have become VERY sceptical of much of science in recent times. Not least because a nasty reaction to a statin (anti-cholesterol) lead me into a whole area of medical science - fronted by practising medical doctors - that is highly sceptical of the conventional idea that saturated fat/cholesterol cause cardiovascular disease. This is rather easy to evaluate, because it boils down to the evidence from a number of long term studies of people, and the results tell a vastly different tale from that we are usually given. OK - this is a very different area of science (!!), but it illustrates the way in which non-rational forces can distort science out of all recognition.

David
 
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Well....... First of all, Newton didn't explain gravity, he provided an accurate (at least in his day) inverse square law that allowed one to calculate gravity.

General Relativity sort of explains gravity, if one believes it. It is now the bedrock of lots of further theory, so science has to treat it as absolutely true - so when the individual stars in galaxies are found to rotate in a way that isn't consistent with NG or GR, dark matter had to be invented! Here is a talk by Ron Hatch, who was a designer of the GPS system:

First his credentials:

http://wiki.naturalphilosophy.org/wiki/ronald-r-hatch/

The talk (which becomes very heavy going):


I have become VERY sceptical of much of science in recent times. Not least because a nasty reaction to a statin (anti-cholesterol) lead me into a whole area of medical science - fronted by practising medical doctors - that is highly sceptical of the conventional idea that saturated fat/cholesterol cause cardiovascular disease. This is rather easy to evaluate, because it boils down to the evidence from a number of long term studies of people, and the results tell a vastly different tale from that we are usually given. OK - this is a very different area of science (!!), but it illustrates the way in which non-rational forces can distort science out of all recognition.

David

One of the historic and ongoing problems with nutrition science is that most studies consider patient reports to accurately describe their actual diets. This has generally resulted in wonky, possibly worthless, data. I'll let you draw your own parallels with NDE research... ;)
 
One of the historic and ongoing problems with nutrition science is that most studies consider patient reports to accurately describe their actual diets. This has generally resulted in wonky, possibly worthless, data. I'll let you draw your own parallels with NDE research... ;)

I'm glad you brought that up!

No, the studies I am talking about followed people to observe either when they died, or observed diseases they were diagnosed with.

I think you are talking about depression, or maybe arthritis, which is obviously subjective.

A series of amazing studies, performed in many countries, have shown that people with higher cholesterol levels in their blood live longer than those with less!

http://vernerwheelock.com/179-cholesterol-and-all-cause-mortality/

These aren't denied because they happened, but they get ignored because they are so inconvenient for the dominant theory of cardiovascular disease!

David
 
Over and over again I've heard it claimed (here and there, not just on this forum, but in other places too) that science is self-correcting.

Of course, that claim is historically true, partly because we only know about the mistakes which were corrected! But also, I think that science has deteriorated badly in recent years because it is now performed by people who are less interested in truth and more interested in their careers.

Science doesn't seem to want to correct some pretty obvious mistakes any more, and I think that correction may get indefinitely delayed. After all, every year that you go on badgering people to avoid saturated fat in favour of often synthetic foods like margarine, the harder it becomes to say, "Sorry folks we were wrong, and moreover we didn't have the evidence to justify those claims in the first place!"

David
 
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"Everything Science tells us about the physical universe is ultimately wrong if it fails to recognize the fundamental nature of consciousness and the underlying role of consciousness in every physical phenomenon that occurs."

I don't see how Science can be right about anything as long as the consciousnesses of scientists don't understand themselves and their own role in the existence of the physical universe. The materialist, naturalist world view of most scientists ignores the fact that consciousness is fundamental and all matter is dependent on consciousness for its existence. Everything Science tells us about the physical universe is ultimately wrong if it fails to recognize the fundamental nature of consciousness and the underlying role of consciousness in every physical phenomenon that occurs. Double slit experiments, quantum entanglement, and the quantum Zeno effect demonstrate this role yet scientists refuse to accept it along with the many other independent forms of evidence demonstrating that consciousness is not produced by the brain. Consciousness cannot be produced by any physical process. How could the changing concentration of ions across the membranes of brain cells produce what the color blue looks like to you? The brain might store data about the wavelength of light falling on the retina, or it might perform calculations on that data, but how could a computational device produce the subjective experience of what a color looks like? Consciousness is fundamentally different from any physical property or process and therefore cannot be produced by the brain. What could be more important to Science than the huge gaps this reveals in the scientific world view? What could be more important to humanity? Science has failed at its most basic and fundamental duty. When Science adopted naturalism it ironically left religion as the best source of information about consciousness and the origin of matter. Until science gives up naturalism and corrects its mistakes, Science will never be what it claims to be: an objective search for truth.

I completely agree with you Jim. I also think consciousness is fundamental. How can a physical brain have awareness? It cannot.
 
Tom is hitting pretty hard, isnt he :O
Jeremiah here ,
I've got to ask....why is everyone wanting to be correct when the subject itself, and all subjects relating to consciousness and beyond have no definitive factual answers??
There's so much more to be pondered and discovered and could be expedentially hastened if WE , all us people with an interest, job, or obsession, could toss around ideas, theories, experiences and not be criticized by a small mind that dwells on specifics that don't match their views....c'mon peoples, will will all draw a last breath on this world before crossing the veil, and wouldn't it be cool if we had some idea of roughly where our next evolutionary destination is? Debate is good but ridicule is not,especially when the accusers haven't the answers either.
Resonance, vibration, observed matter and dark matter....they make up everything as we know it , even our thoughts comprise them, we know that energy, like water, cannot and does not die, just changes its form to something that cannot be observed as yet, and I promise you, all of you, that after that last breath, our energy will continue as it always has and always will till such a time that our resonance is pure
 
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Jeremiah here ,
I've got to ask....why is everyone wanting to be correct when the subject itself, and all subjects relating to consciousness and beyond have no definitive factual answers??
There's so much more to be pondered and discovered and could be expedentially hastened if WE , all us people with an interest, job, or obsession, could toss around ideas, theories, experiences and not be criticized by a small mind that dwells on specifics that don't match their views....c'mon peoples, will will all draw a last breath on this world before crossing the veil, and wouldn't it be cool if we had some idea of roughly where our next evolutionary destination is? Debate is good but ridicule is not,especially when the accusers haven't the answers either.
Resonance, vibration, observed matter and dark matter....they make up everything as we know it , even our thoughts comprise them, we know that energy, like water, cannot and does not die, just changes its form to something that cannot be observed as yet, and I promise you, all of you, that after that last breath, our energy will continue as it always has and always will till such a time that our resonance is pure
sure... it's always nice to be nice :)
 
Jeremiah here ,
I've got to ask....why is everyone wanting to be correct when the subject itself, and all subjects relating to consciousness and beyond have no definitive factual answers??
There's so much more to be pondered and discovered and could be expedentially hastened if WE , all us people with an interest, job, or obsession, could toss around ideas, theories, experiences and not be criticized by a small mind that dwells on specifics that don't match their views....c'mon peoples, will will all draw a last breath on this world before crossing the veil, and wouldn't it be cool if we had some idea of roughly where our next evolutionary destination is? Debate is good but ridicule is not,especially when the accusers haven't the answers either.
Resonance, vibration, observed matter and dark matter....they make up everything as we know it , even our thoughts comprise them, we know that energy, like water, cannot and does not die, just changes its form to something that cannot be observed as yet, and I promise you, all of you, that after that last breath, our energy will continue as it always has and always will till such a time that our resonance is pure
A lot of us here have a science background of one sort of another - we actually care about how ordinary reality fits into the bigger picture! I guess you could call some of us nerds! Most of us like to be fairly precise about words with a scientific meaning.

I grew up extremely fond of science as a teenager and at university, but later I saw how science can be abused, and how it is often used to try to brush the tricky questions about ψ, NDE's etc under the carpet.

David
 
ummm ... if you ever find yourself in a 2 + 2 = 5 world???

You should be afraid. You should be very, very, afraid.

And that's exactly where virtually everyone in the english speaking portion of this world (England, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and portions of South Africa and India, mostly) is, today. It was done through things called institutions and corporations, both of which everyone who was taught to speak english was also taught to revere.

If you don't know me, let me just say that I have been further inside industry than anyone you know, without blinking. I'm a hard core physicist and master refrigeration mechanic (enthalpy or entropy anyone?) and a master electrician (dynamo hum?) and that the physical world, and the sciences, are so important it's not funny. There wouldn't be cold beer (or much of anything else) without real science and its' application of pressures and temperatures and actual state: solid liquid gas or plasma: and the use of many elements, just because of the real physical properties they each come with on their own.

To me and all of the other people who work in any of the applied sciences this all needs to be real, and written down, and, it is.

However ...

More than 93% of the population, the media and the institutions thusly charged, and the corporations, have just thrown out into the middle of a field I like to call la-la land. It is abhorrent the amount and types of mis-information which are repeated ad-nausem and on a daily basis.

The title of this book is accurate however I'd like to say that science can not BE wrong, that would never work for me and many others, so, it isn't science that is wrong here, it is the foo that you're looking at TELLING you about science.
 
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... so many of the threads in here, and the discussions, and the emotions, all point to a book with the title "how to live with liars amongst us, and why this ego they installed into me needs to take a permanent vacation"
 
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