The following are excerpts from Rupert Sheldrake's Banned Ted Talk: 'The Science Delusion'

Morphic Resonance: everything depends on evolving habits not on fixed laws.

(9:52) I want to spend a few moments on the 'constants of nature' too, because these are again are assumed to be constant. Things like the gravitational constant, the speed of light are called the fundamental constants. Are they really constant?

(10:07) Well, when I got interested in this question I tried to find out, they're given in physics handbooks; handbooks in physics list the existing fundamental constants and tell you their value, but I wanted to see if they had changed.

(10:21) So I got the old volumes of physical handbooks and I went to the patent office library here in London, and they're the only place I could find that kept the old volumes; you know normally people throw them away when the new values come out they throw away the old ones.

(10:36) When I did this I found that the speed of light dropped between 1928 and 1945 by about 20 km/s, that's a huge drop because they are given with errors within a fractions of decimal point of error.

(10:52) And yet, all over the world it dropped. And they were all getting values very similar to each other with tiny errors and then in 1948 it went up again and then people started getting very similar news again.

(11:08) I was very intrigued by this and I couldn't make sense of it so I went to see the head of Meteorology at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington; Meteorology is the science in which people measures constants.

(11:21) And I asked him about this, I said, "What do you make of this drop in the speed of light between 1928 and 1945?"

(11:29) And he said, "Oh dear, you've uncovered the most embarrassing episode in the history of our science."

(11:37) So, I said, "Well, could the speed of light have actually dropped and that would have amazing implications if so."

(11:42) He said, "No, no, of course it couldn't have actually dropped, it's a constant."

(11:47) So, "Oh, well then how do you explain the fact that everyone was finding it going must slower during that period? Is it because they were fudging their results to get to what they thought other people should be getting and the whole thing was just produced in the minds of physicists?"

(12:04) He said, "We don't like to use the word Fudge," and I said, "What do you prefer?" And he said, "We prefer to call it intellectual phase-locking."

(12:20) So, I said, "Well if it was going on then how can we be so sure it's not going on today and that the present values aren't produced by intellectual phase-locking?" And he said, "Oh, we know that's not the case." And I said, "how do we know?" And he said, "Well, we've solved the problem."

(12:35) And I said, "Well how?" And he said, "Well we fixed the speed of light by definition in 1972." So I said, "but it might still change…" And he said, "Yes, but we'd never know because we've defined the meter in terms of speed of light so the units change with it." So he looked very please about that, they'd fixed that problem.

(12:57) But I said, "Well then, what about Big G? The gravitational constant known in the trade as 'Big G' because it's written with a capital G. Newtons Universal Gravitational Constant that's varied by 1.3% in recent years and it seems to vary from place to place and from time to time."

(13:17) And he said, "Oh well those are just errors." And unfortunately there are quiet big errors with Big G. So I said, "What if it's really changing? Perhaps it's really changing…"

Pull Quote on Variable Rate of Radioactive Decay:

"That's when they discovered something strange. The data produced gave random numbers for the individual atoms, yes, but the overall decay wasn't constant, flying in the face of the accepted rules of chemistry...Intriguingly, the decay seemed to vary with the seasons, with the rate a little faster in the winter and a little slower in the summer."

(13:29) And then I looked at how they do it: what happens is they measure it in different labs, they get different values on different days and then they average them. And then, other labs around the world do the same and they come out, usually, with a rather different average and then the International Committee on Meteorology meets every 10 years or so and averages the ones from labs from around the world to come up with the value of Big G.

(13:51) But what if G were actually fluctuating, what if it changed? There's already evidence actually that it changes through out the day and throughout the year...

(14:11) Maybe they all change together, what if these 'errors' are going up together and down together. For more than 10 years I've been trying to persuade Meteorologists to look at the raw data, in fact I am now trying to persuade them to put it online on the internet with the dates and the actual measurements and see if they're correlated: to see if they're all up at one time and all down at another.

(14:32) If so they might be fluctuating together and that would tell us something very, very interesting; but no one has done this, they haven't done it because 'G is a constant,' there's no point looking for changes.

(14:43) You see, here is a very simple example of where a dogmatic assumption actually inhibits inquiry. I myself think that the constants may vary quite considerably, well within limits, but they may all varying and I think the day will come when scientific journals, like Nature, will have a weekly report on the constants like stock market reports in newspapers, you know like: this week Big G was slightly up, the charge on the electron was down and the speed of light held steady...

insightful...

I just love it when an OP promotes an urban legend.

Many parts of the OP are misleading and false, and some parts are correct. Which part of the OP is promoting which urban legend legend?

Do you mean the first line, where the word 'banned' is abused for dramatic (if dishonest) effect?

Yeh I always raise an eyebrow when someone claims something has been "banned"

The article was interesting and I suspect that the speed of light and gravity are not as constant as we observe, but then our observations or measurements may not be and constant as we think.

Funny thing people are so vulnerable the"spiritual crap" a long with religious crap it's all they believe and choose to accept.Why?Do humans really want and feel the need to believe in imaginary beings because there's no other alternative?Dungeon and dragons is a cool MMO but hell i don't believe in "oh oh oh it's magic."
Look i shoot right from the heart i'm not no jesus jew worship him s h i t like most because i really could care less about him.This unproven messiah is a money making scam that has existed for 2,000 years and you idiots actually fall for that s h i t?Why?

Rupert Sheldrake went to a hookah smoking jesus freak monastery and gave up all his realistic life for f u c k i n g religion,what a moron.
Wanna know how i know this?Because i'm a scientist and if there's really any dogma it's more on theist scientist like Francis Collins.
This s h it is so stupid.

It's almost comical to see people like Rupert because most jesus freaks don't even know jesus was all for jews and gentiles were dogs.All of a sudden thanks to the greek authors jesus had a change of heart and wanted his disciples to spread the word after his resurrection.It's a scam,believe your tradition but it really is a new jewish scam that happened 2,000 years ago.
This passive aggressive garbage i see on here is for the weak,speak up and quit a s s kissing to these confused individuals(christians or abrahamic and hindu followers) and say how you feel.

it suited the Romans well,Paul's Claim!
Sometime I think Paul was the first Globalist!

RKISIT,



Do you think that Sheldrake knows that he is wrong? Do you think that he is a con artist who intentional lies, or do you think he believes what he is saying? (or something else?)

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Many people love Sheldrake because he knows enough actual science to pull the sciency wool over non-scientists eyes.

He is better than actual scientists at articulating his beliefs with enthusiasm, engagement, and seeming logic.

It can be really hard for non-cynical non-scientists to see through his sciency sleight of hand.

What we need are more scientists that have this skill at engaging people.

He's the typical money making con.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake

Rupert Sheldrake is an English former scientist who, since the 1980s, has preferred to spend much of his time promoting his own bizarre pet pseudoscientific new age theory of everything called "morphic resonance". Sheldrake believes that "memory is inherent in nature" and that "natural systems, such as termite colonies, or pigeons, or orchid plants, or insulin molecules, inherit a collective memory from all previous things of their kind." and that this "morphic resonance" is also responsible for "telepathy-type interconnections between organisms". Unsurprisingly, nobody in science takes Sheldrake seriously. However, he has written several books targeted at the general public.

Sheldrake's claims about phenomena caused by "morphic resonance" can be grouped into two broad categories. The first category are real phenomena such as biological heredity, animal and plant development and behaviour - Sheldrake thinks the scientific theories that real scientists have developed to explain these are incorrect because they can't explain everything in detail. The second group are phenomena which almost certainly don't exist outside of Sheldrake's imagination - namely various parapsychological claims involving memory, telepathy, perception and cognition - particularly psychic dogs.

Most of Sheldrake's ideas are clearly pseudoscientific nonsense. Morphic resonance is extremely vague and ill-defined, and can only really be described as whatever Sheldrake says it is. Crucially, it is not falsifiable, and therefore not testable (although some have tried).

His latest book, "The Science Delusion" is an anti-scientific rant, in which he applies postmodernist hyperscepticism to science, accusing scientists of adhering to "scientific dogmata", such as the constancy of the speed of light. Ironically, Sheldrake fails to apply any sort of scepticism to his own ideas, which he promotes uncritically, despite there being no evidence for them.


He sure has a way of inflating his Scientific Achievements and Credentials!



Sheldrake, and his supporters like to appeal to authority based on his credentials, often describing him as a "Cambridge University biologist". To someone without an understanding of how science works (for example those without a background education in science), this may seem impressive. Further confusion arises because Sheldrake likes to use terminology that sounds impressive, and some points should be particularly noted:

1. Sheldrake describes himself as having been a "Research Fellow of the Royal Society". The Royal Society's Research Fellowship - essentially a grant for researchers in the early stages of their research career - can easily be confused with the highly prestigious election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. Sheldrake has not been elected FRS.
2. Some of Sheldrake's work has been funded by the Perrott-Warrick Project, a fund set up in the early 20th century to fund research in parapsychology, which Sheldrake points out is "administered by Trinity College, Cambridge". However, the involvement of Trinity is limited to organising the finances - nobody at Trinity has any involvement with the committee that decides how the money is spent, and consequently Sheldrake has held no position on the faculty at Trinity. The Master of Trinity, Lord Rees, has on the record disowned Sheldrake and distanced him from Trinity, playfully suggesting that as a former fellow of Clare College, it was Clare that should receive "undiluted credit" for his work[1].
3. Sheldrake claims to have authored "more than 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals" [3]. However, excluding articles in pseudojournals that clearly weren't peer reviewed, the true number is actually less that half this number (helpfully they're on his website so you can count 'em) - he hasn't published any peer reviewed research since the mid-1980s.

These facts don't stop media organisations from incorrectly referring to him in innaccurate and flattering terms "Professor Rupert Sheldrake" (BBC)[2], "Cambridge University Biologist" (Daily Mail), "one of the world's most preeminent biologists" (his own publishers)[3].

This is a huge problem, and the main reason why I feel he deserves no platform at all.

RKISIT,

I have no knowledge about the messenger (Rupert) that you are bashing and had no idea about his religious beliefs, but that is not really the topic of the post.

The topic is about the fluctuations in the official measurements of the so-called constants, the speed of light and gravity.

I saw a show on television today about the earth and it was about a place in Canada that is missing gravity. What puzzled me about the show was that they did not say how much gravity it was missing and I sure didn't see any polar bears floating up in the air so I don't know if the gravity was just less than usual, but they made it sound like there was "no gravity" there. If that were the case, then I would think that matter would be sucked out of that hole and float up into space.

But in any case, I guess gravity there was not 'constant.'

So I would prefer a discussion about this subject if you, as a scientist, know anything about it rather than bashing the messengers.

It's true that parts of Canada have less gravity than was expected.

The degree of difference is less than 1/10 of 1%. You wouldn't notice the difference. No one would have known that gravity was less there, without the sensitive instruments that scientists use.

This is actually a different issue than 'whether or not the gravitational constant is constant'. The gravitational constant was assumed to be constant during the investigation and analysis of this 'lower gravity' region of canada, and nothing about the canadian phenomena suggests a variation in the gravitational constant.


We expect the force of gravity to vary over the surface of the earth, and to depend on altitude and other factors like the density of the mantle. This variation occurs even while the gravitational constant remains the same. The situation in canada was interesting because people didn't know why it was varied in that particular way in that particular area.

To help understand why speculation about 'variation of the gravitational constant' is different than measurement of 'variation of the gravitational field', we can look at the equation for gravity:

Fg = ( m1 m2 G ) / r^2

Lets say you are m1, and you want to calculate the Fg you would experience. As you move around on the surface of the earth, the sum of the contributions of different parts of the earth (to the force of gravity that you experience in that location) is taken by looking at m2 and r - not G. G remains constant while m2 and r vary.

I haven't heard any credible scientists suggest that there is any real issues surrounding the assumption that G is constant. They acknowledge that mistakes were made in the past, for reasons that we understand (like using old school instruments, which weren't as sensitive).

It's hard to take the messenger seriously cause of his mind altering LSD trips he went on in India and all of a sudden he became a psychic.Matter of fact it's almost hard to accept he even had that conversation with a meteorologist.
Fact is there are fluctuations all over so if at points it's a millisecond or nanosecond off science is at least able to measure it and get it close to that time.I really don't see why the guy is trying to create drama in the science community when in reality science has known about these fluctuations and some who aren't scientist but enjoy it or rather thinks it's cool would know about the fluctuations.It's old news just not everyone who is interested in science knows about it or even cares about it.

Yes, regional fluctuations in the strength of the earth's magnetic field is old news. Its old news, and it was predicted by the theories. That's a non-issue.

But my understanding is that Rupert is claiming that the gravitation *constant* fluctuates. From what I've read, there is no actual reason to believe that the constant fluctuates, and there are several good reasons to believe that it doesn't (such as the lack of aberrant behaviour of satellites, etc).

I myself have never heard of that either from anyone other than of course from people like Sheldrake.That's why it was hard for me to answer without insulting him and his false claims.The gravitational constant to my knowledge has no known violation.

Well I know a lot of people who have had positive results with LSD that actually changed their lives for the better, and they say that everyone has the ability to be psychic. If you have never had a psychic experience yourself, then you have something to look forward to.

As for the fluctuation is these alleged "constants" and how they are averaged and then called a "constant" I think that is very misleading to call them "constants." I suspect they might be more than a millisecond off but I'm not a scientist. Just because you say it's "old news" does not mean that scientists should call something a constant when it is not.

JB you take pseudoscience and/or metaphysics to literally.