EXCERPT

Stephen Law (SL): If you say it’s just a mystery and we will never know the answer to that then you just draw a line and science just comes to a halt whereas it might well be that science can explain these things. If you look at the history of science you will find people saying that all along the way through. Things such as you could never explain a tree, only God could make one of those.

James Le Fanu (JLF): In the late 19th century Lord Kelvin said that the future of the physical sciences lay in the last six places of decimals. That is to mean that we understood everything so much that only trivial things were left unanswered. Then ten years later Einstein came along with his theory of relativity and turned the whole of physics on its back. Obviously people have said that that is the limits of science, those are the boundaries of science and human knowledge. But what I am trying to get at, and why I believe that this is such an important topic now as opposed to 50 years ago, is that there is something really interesting here. Science has taken us to a situation where one can look beyond what it is that one can know and I think that is a very important philosophical point.

Most of us operate in a society where, in theory, everything is knowable and that what is not known is just waiting to be known. There is a view that all the problems are just waiting to be resolved. But this gives us a completely different view; it says yes, we can know all this but it also tells us what it is that we can’t know. That of course changes the way in which one sees the world; One begins to see that life is a bit of a miracle and that is the beginning of knowing and understanding. It’s not anti-scientist, but the fact is you walk out the door and see a bunch of daffodils and you think ‘oh my goodness how did that happen.’

SL: I can’t see what the argument is here. We have James throwing up his hands and going ‘oooh look at that, that’s really complicated.’- Science will never explain that. What you need to do is point to a specific example like Michael Behe does and say ‘Look at that bacterium, only God could make that’ or at least some sort of cosmic intelligence is required. If you look at the scientific consensus they are not persuaded by these kinds of arguments because the arguments are very bad! You (JLF) haven’t even come up with a single example of something that science couldn’t explain. But even when people do give those examples the fact is the scientists are by far and large not persuaded by them.

Chair: Let’s turn to Rupert Sheldrake (RS). You’ve been very critical of the way science operates at the moment. You say there are large areas that are totally unknowable and you also attack the way attempts are made to know things at present. For things that are knowable, you seem to be saying the method that science uses is not the best way to go forward. How would you like to see science change so that we can progress?

RS: I don’t have a problem with the method. I am in favour of the method that’s why I’m a scientist. I do have a problem with the dogmatic limitations of science. It’s dogmas in away that are the real boundaries of science and human knowledge. For example, consciousness; the idea that it is all inside the brain, that consciousness is only in ones head, is a materialist assumption. I think our minds our much more extensive then just our heads. I think they stretch out in every act of perception. When I see you all now, my perception, my image of you is located out there where you are sitting and not in my head. I think that’s why if I looked at you from behind and you didn’t know I was there you might feel me looking at you, a sense of being stared at. This is an empirical question, one that I’ve investigated before, as have others. It’s not outside the scientific method but it is outside the dogmas of materialism.

Telepathy is another example. I think there is good evidence for it and I have investigated it using the scientific method. However many of my materialist opponents are absolutely certain that it can’t possibly happen and the evidence must be flawed. These are examples of where we have a dogmatic limits of science, of what it can do. Science could have a much better and expanded understanding of human and animal nature without these dogmas. I do agree with James (JLF) that there are areas we can’t go and the openness of the future is one of those areas. Even the weather forecasters can’t get it exactly right a few days in advance. If people say what’s going to happen in the next 50 years? Will humanity survive? Science doesn’t help us very much. It seems science becomes limited when we are dealing with the real world and its complexities.