Read this if you read The God Delusion

Read the God Delusion and decided to read this to get a balanced view...really worth listening to the author...puts in perspective, everything that Richard Dawkins stated in his book - the God Delusion....does not take a genius to realise the there is more to the human and living world as we know it...Dawkins also has a point that the idea of God as we know it within religion is fundamentally flawed...there needs to be an honest cooperation between science - physics and energy where everything unmeasureable seem to reside...thank you Rupert Sheldrake for writing this book and reading it...just add i am not religious but like Darwin try to understand nature in my little way...

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Eye opening. Complex subjects very well explained

Very enjoyable,. Well read, thought provoking and well put together. If interested in science would strongly recommend.

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Sheldrake at His Best

Any additional comments?

If I was able to have dinner with anyone I chose then Dr Rupert Sheldrake would definitely be up there on the shortlist. He has a formidable mind yet at the same time a very approachable and humourous style to what he says that fascinates and draws you in. In addition I do believe he is really on to something and his ideas really ought to be given more serious attention than mainstream academia has been prepared to do. My only minor criticism is that it does feel a little like Sheldrake was advised to speak slowly and clearly so everyone would understand him, and this makes the narration just a little dull and stilted at times. This is a shame because if you check out some of his talks and interviews on YouTube he generally has a more naturally energetic style that would have really brought this book alive. Don't let that put you off though... it's a minor point and not something that prevented me from enjoying this audio book very much.

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1 person found this helpful

God's delusion vs science delusion

Thought provoking and challenging the present mind sets. Need for accepting the new way of thinking

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1 person found this helpful

Interesting and enlightening

A beautifully presented, interesting, and thought provoking book. Science vs wisdom. Thank you Dr Sheldrake.

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Very good critique against materialism

The book is a very nice breath of fresh air in the face of all this toxic and dogmatic materialism that has poisoned modern science and created many unnecessary taboos. I wish there were more books such as this one. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because I think that some of the athor's arguments could have been expanded on a little further. When politely trying to debate metaphysics, epistemology, the nature of knowledge, science, and the scientific method, with someone who has accepted the materialist doctrine as a fact, rudeness and dogmatic answers are usualy expressed by the materialist person not even allowing the debate to exist in the first place. Many researchers fear bringing up certain arguments because they fear the response from the scientific community, which tends to be extremely materialistic in nature and, therefore, responds very negatively to such arguments, especially when parapsychology and the paranormal are brought up in the discussion. I used to believe that the scientific method is capable of analysing any context of reality and any situation, and I also believed that when something is not reproducible in a lab, that that thing can neither work or exist. I was wrong. When I started studying philosophy and the structure of logic and rationality, I understood that reality is far more complicated than what the scientific method tries to sell. There are many axiomatic truths that are not possible to prove or disprove in any way that science just assumes are true and bases its analysis and method on those "facts." Moreover, the scientific method is incompatible with a lot of contexts of reality and is not able to study or give answers to quite a lot of things and situations. It is by no means the method for explaining "everything," it is more a method for explaining the behaviour of matter if we were to describe it more precisely. I can give a short example of what I mean when I say "incompatibility with a given context." Science can not prove what drawing is better or more good-looking than another or what existential philosophy theory is better, more accurate or more effective than another. Art is one thing. It is real within the realm of experience. It is not something that you can put in a lab. Yet, it is very real to people, valued, discussed, liked, and disliked. Existential philosophy is not science. It belongs to the realm of abstract reasoning, yet it can save lives or destroy lives, and it explains a lot of abstract behaviours and mechanics of people and life in general. You can not put existential philosophy and test it in a lab. These are not things science does or deals with or understands because the scientific method is engeneerd to be focused and effective only for understanding matter and what is real in phisical terms. Art and existential philosophy, those 2 examples, are equally part of reality and human experience just as matter is, and they both describe many mechanics of nature, people, life, and the universe. There are many things science is unable to know and many limits that it is forced to rely on. Instrumentation is another limit, and I can go on and on. One thing that completely convinced me that science is not the "ultimate truth pill" is when I started researching paranormal phenomenons on my own, becuase I thought that this was the only way to truly know with certainty if there is something to it.
One day, eventually, I assisted to a pretty heavy paranormal phenomenon that has absolutely no possible immaginable conventional explanation. Science has claimed to have "researched" fields like parapsychology and the paranormal to enough extent in order to be able to rule out the existence of other realms of reality other than the physical realm. All serious books of science, which tackle the matter, all respected experts and documents, will always tell you this. Yet, when I personally faced such a phenomenon, all those experts became far more questionable to me in that specific argument. It's as if the scientists expect a ghost in a lab to move objects whenever they want in order to achieve full reproducibility, or otherwise they rule out it's existence. This is a very naiive idea. Chaotic phenomenons such as those, poltergeist activity, etc, can not be predicted or controlled. Sometimes, it just happens. Such rare but real phenomenons can not be studied in a lab, and that is the only reason it is not real to them. Not because it doesn't happen. If research of parapsychology was more serious and more supported, I am sure that we would find out many interesting things. Some scientists have decided in advance what should be real and what should not, and this is very anti-scientific.

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Excellent...

Really insightful, non-bias and shockingly informative. a worthwhile read for anyone with an open mind..

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2 people found this helpful

A good valid book but something lacking

Would you listen to The Science Delusion again? Why?

Probably not. If I run out of other things to listen to I might do in the future.

What did you like best about this story?

Exposes some of the serious fallacies with science - mainly human prejudice that hides behind a mask of rationality which upon inspecting cracks and reveals irrationality.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances? How does this one compare?

The author reads this book - I always prefer that as you can tell there is a connection with the material being read. A very easy voice to listen to although here he is a little subdued to start with. Either his mood picks up as the book gets going or I got used to his style. Far, far better than some chirpy professional narrator whose intonation betrays a complete lack of connection of understanding of the reading material.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Er...'Freeing the spirit of enquiry'

Any additional comments?

Well worth a listen but may leave you with more questions than answers.

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A much needed paradigm shift in Science

The Science Delusion is a comprehensive refutation of the Materialist Doctrine which has become an establishment trend in modern science. Materialism, or the Mechanical view of life and the universe, is both limited and ultimately wrong according to Sheldrake, and persists only because of establishment and financial pressures which are holding back scientific inquiry.
Sheldrake uses a wide variety of cases to demonstrate that a Mechanical worldview is not only limiting, but falls short in numerous instances to comprehend phenomena that could otherwise could be better understood through less conventional methods. The proposed solution Sheldrake advocates is Morphic Resonance, a model of inquiry that takes into account fields and does not limit inquiry purely to objects alone.
Sheldrake demonstrates that scientific method is continually evolving, and establishment pressures have hindered further evolution, and as such, a paradigm shift is necessary. Just as scientific inquiry has evolved, so has the Universe itself, and establishment models are fast becoming outdated.
For the skeptics, Sheldrake’s methods are entirely consistent with the scientific method and would do well to be examined and tested.
For this reader, never a believer in Materialist Reductionism, Sheldrake not only confirms pre-existing beliefs, but offers new models of inquiry. Without a shadow of a doubt the best scientific book I have read in recent years, and highly recommended to all.

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Recommend!

Excellent book, highly insightful and a joy to listen! I love Sheldrake's open attitude, narrative style, and his suggestions about how we can go about decapitalising the dogmatic approach of many current 'scientific' practices and attitudes. The Dawkins impressions were my favourite and made me laugh.

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