“The enemy of my enemy is my friend." In politics, that phrase is often acted on. It can refer to people like Sheldrake borrowing ideas too.
In a book called Why Truth Matters (written by Jeremy Stangroom and Ophelia Benson), one passage is very apposite to the central theme of this essay:
“Meera Nanda discusses in Prophets Facing Backward the way way Hindu fundamentalists in India have drawn on postmodern scepticism and hostility to science in ‘Hinduizing’ Indian science, education, textbooks and the like.”
Rupert Sheldrake himself is sceptical of – and hostile to – science. He has certainly “drawn on postmodern scepticism and hostility to science”. He has done so in great detail. Yet he’s a scientist too — at least as far as his previous work in biology is concerned. However, like the Hindu fundamentalists, Sheldrake won’t see himself as a “postmodern sceptic”. He simply quotes them and uses their ideas.
The Criticism of Science is Scientific
As just stated, Sheldrake offers his readers very critical views of science. Does he think that these criticisms are themselves scientific?
Sheldrake’s position is very similar to that of the sociologist David Bloor and his “strong programme”. Bloor writes:
“If sociology could not be applied in a thoroughgoing way to scientific knowledge it would mean that science could not scientifically know itself.”
This position has it that science, in order to be true science, must know itself. And it can only know itself through sociology, not epistemology or the philosophy of science. All this chimes in with the position of another sociologist, Steve Fuller. Fuller states the following:
“[T]o a sociologist, it will be apparent that many of the ‘deep puzzles’ that these scientists brood over could be solved, or at least dissipated, by a dose of social science [].”
Fuller then went on to argue that
“much of what is said could have benefited from the presence of a sociological interlocutor”.
It can be supposed that Professor Fuller will probably believe that his own sociology would enable both physicists and biologists to see the wood, rather than the trees.
So, according to these self-important sociologists, sociology is not only a science: it’s a science that captures the truth about science as a whole. Although Sheldrake himself doesn’t use the word “sociology” much, this is exactly what he takes himself to be doing when he offers his own (sociological and political) criticisms of science.
Relativism and Sciences In the Plural
Sheldrake is a relativist about science. However, not in a dismissive way that rejects all science. Instead, Sheldrake argues that there are sciences in the plural. Thus, in his book The Science Delusion, he details various of these sciences (or examples of science).
Sheldrake believes in knowledges in the plural too. Here again, unlike the positions of postmodernist sceptics and relativists, he uses this not to argue that there is science, and then there are other examples of knowledge. Instead, Sheldrake believes that these other examples of knowledge actually constitute forms of science.
Sheldrake as a Kuhnian
Sheldrake is a (qualified?) follower of Thomas Kuhn. He explicitly quotes him and uses his ideas. This is particularly the case when it comes to Kuhn’s well-known notion of a “paradigm”. But firstly, take the following words from Maria Bagramian:
“[The] relativistic implications of Kuhn’s view seem evident. All assessments of the success, and even truth, of a particular scientific theory can be made only within and relative to a given paradigm — there is no room for extra-paradigmatic, non-relative evaluations in Kuhn’s view of science.”
Thus, does Sheldrake believe that his work constitutes a new paradigm, as well as being an example of a “paradigm shift”? In more self-referential terms, this means that all assessments of the success, and even truth, of Sheldrake’s theories can only be made within — and relative to — his very own paradigm. There simply is no room for extra-paradigmatic, non-relative evaluations of his theories.
Sheldrake’s position can be tied to Kuhn’s own words, rather than to Baghramian’s account of Kuhn’s (supposed?) “relativism”. Ironically, in this passage, Kuhn is critical of the positions of the “strong programme" and “deconstruction”, which he claimed had taken his own views too far:
“Talk of evidence, or the rationality of claims drawn from it, and of the truth or probability of those claims has been seen as simply the rhetoric behind the victorious cloaks of power. What passes for scientific knowledge becomes, then, simply the belief of the winners.”
From much of what Sheldrake has written, it’s clear that he too is against the science of the “winners”. (Does that make him a loser?)
Sheldrake’s Politics of Science
We can tie Sheldrake to the work of feminist philosopher Sandra Harding and her championship of “unconventional” epistemologies and sciences. Specifically, Harding wrote the following words:
“The dominant conceptual schemes of the natural and social sciences fit the experience that Western men of the elite classes and races have of themselves and the world around them.”
Sheldrake himself doesn’t, and needn’t, follow every single letter of Harding’s political worldview. However, he does often write about the dominant conceptual schemes of the natural sciences and how they’re institutionally embedded.
Sheldrake then allows the historian of science Patricia Fara to put his own position on scientists, rather than on science itself:
“Like police guards patrolling national borders, scientists decreed which topics should be inside the large domain they ruled over, and which should be outlawed.”
Sheldrake even tunes into the strongly political angle of much postmodernist philosophy and theory. He tells us that “[s]cience has always been elitist and undemocratic”. What’s more, “it is currently becoming more hierarchical, not less so”.
Like many of Sheldrake’s claims (or rants), there is an element of truth in much of what he says. It’s fairly easy to agree with him when he says that “[s]cience has always been elitist and undemocratic”. However, even this needs to be qualified. Of course, if it were qualified, then it wouldn’t have the rhetorical power Sheldrake wants it to have.
As for science currently being more hierarchical. That depends. Is science, or any particular science, more hierarchical than the institutions which Sheldrake himself is involved in? And what about the religions Sheldrake is favourable to?
Psychology and Buddhism
I’ve just mentioned religions because Sheldrake himself compares “the mystical traditions of both East and West” to the work of “academic psychologists and cognitive scientists”. The latter two use subjects “who have no professional training in observing or reporting mental processes”. Sheldrake then quotes “Buddhist scholar” B. Alan Wallace on this. Wallace tells us that cognitive scientists “receive no professional training in observing the realities that constitute their field of enquiry”.
Note the quick shift from the Sheldrake’s “paid subjects” of cognitive scientists to Wallace’s reference to cognitive scientists themselves.
Both Sheldrake and Wallace stress professional training. Can you have such a thing without some kind of hierarchy? It’s even possible that Buddhist scholars and people like Sheldrake indulge in behaviour that can be classed as being “elitist and undemocratic”. Indeed, even without Buddhist scholars and Sheldrake having as much social power as mainstream scientists supposedly have, this may still be the case. So, the worst that can be said of my statements here is that I’m wasting my time on small fish. (Didn’t Foucault argue that “power is everywhere”?)
Sheldrake’s Rhetorical Language Game
Whatever term is used – “language games” (Wittgenstein), “phrase regimes” (Lyotard), “paradigms” (Kuhn), etc. – Sheldrake offers his own take on the reality of “pluralism” and relativism:
“In almost every sphere of human life, there is not one but many points of view. There are many languages, cultures, nations, philosophies, religions, sects, political parties, businesses and life-styles. Only in the realm of science can we still find the old ethos of monopoly, universality and absolute authority that used to be claimed by the Roman Catholic Church.”
The way Sheldrake puts it, science shouldn’t have any kind of identity at all. Does that apply to all his other examples too? How many different points of view can be handled in most religions, political parties, and lifestyles? What about those points of view which actually negate the said religions, parties, cultures, nations, etc.?
Perhaps Sheldrake’s analogy doesn’t work anyway.
Can Sheldrake really see a comparison between many languages, cultures, etc. within a nation or culture, and the same being said about a particular language, culture, etc. within a single nation or culture? Obviously, religions don’t allow those points of view which stray too far from the religion itself. The same is true of philosophies, political parties, etc. So why should science be any different?
Sheldrake, in a very political mood, tells his readers that
“[a]rrogance and snobbery make most modern, scientifically educated people feel superior to all pre-scientific cultures, including their own”.
Is this true? In many cases, it’s obviously false. Many educated people have a rather patronising view of all pre-scientific cultures in that they respect them regardless of any specific details. There has been a long tradition among posh and educated people, dating back to the orientalist Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) and further back, of this. Educated hippies did this kind of thing all the time in the late 1960s and beyond. And, for the last decade or longer, there’ve been efforts to “decolonise” the universities.
Indeed, even when educated people don’t praise non-Western cultures in a grandstanding manner, they don’t automatically express superiority towards them either. This is why Sheldrake really needs to cut down on his non-scientific rhetoric.
Despite that, within science there actually are “many points of view” anyway. That’s not enough for Sheldrake. He wants science to incorporate many points of view that are outside science. And, here again, science would lose its identity were it to do so. Perhaps Sheldrake wants that. Yet, at the very same time, he often stresses that his own paranormal theories and work are scientific in seemingly mainstream or conventional ways. So Sheldrake stresses tests, experiments, observations, interviews, etc. on paranormal phenomena.
How many cakes can Sheldrake eat at the same time?
Sheldrake on the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
Of course, Sheldrake is really talking about how this scientific monopoly and absolute authority have treated his own work. Thus, in the very next paragraph, he writes the following:
“This authoritarian mentality is most obvious in relation to psychic phenomena and alternative medicine. These are treated as heresies, rather than valid areas for rational enquiry.”
“Heresies against science”, the "absolute authority of science", “dogmatic scientists”, "scientific witch hunts", “scientific fundamentalism” … Okay! We get it, Mr Sheldrake! You believe that what some “materialists” and scientists have accused religious people of, they themselves are now guilty of. This is a theme (or a set of buzzwords) that Sheldrake uses… again, again and again.
Let’s spell it out.
If a materialist or scientist accuses a paranormalist, religious person, or spiritualist of x, then the latter will accuse the former of being x too. Thus, we have lots of paranormalists, anti-materialists, religious people, and spiritualists who’ve accused materialists and scientists of having “faith” in materialism and science. Indeed, they’ve also stated that “science [or materialism] is a religion”.
This happens a lot at infant and junior schools. In other words, when a young child accuses another young child of being x, then that other young child accuses the accuser of being x too.
Sheldrake carries on:
“Self-appointed inquisitions, like the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, try to ensure that the subjects are not taken seriously in the respectable media, deprived of funding and excluded from university syllabuses”
… I must state the painfully obvious here.
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry has never burnt anyone at the stake or tortured/imprisoned any paranormalists, anti-materialists, etc. None of the materialists and sceptics around today have done anything remotely like this either. In fact, those people who’re supposedly the victims of sceptical inquisitions — such as Sheldrake himself — have published best-sellers, been interviewed countless times, have millions of followers, made lots of money, etc.
Sheldrake's current fame and fortune aren’t enough for him. He wants to be taken seriously by mainstream science too! Sheldrake wants existing science departments to study his hypothesis of morphic resonance, as well as other paranormal stuff. And then, of course, Sheldrake would become even better known and more well-off than he already is.
Finally, if all Sheldrake’s revolutionary dreams-for-a-future-science were actually put into practice, then no real science would survive. Literally!
