Book Review: 'Science Set Free' Challenges Assumptions You Didn't Know You Had

I recently listened to the audiobook version of Science Set Free, by Rupert Sheldrake, and I expect the book will have a lasting effect on my worldview.  If you are the kind of person who gets uncomfortable when your worldview is analyzed, or someone who feels dread when your hidden assumptions are pointed out to you, then Science Set Free is not the book for you.  If, on the other hand, you are, like me, exhilarated when you stumble upon a persistently convincing person like Sheldrake telling you everything you know may be wrong, then you would probably enjoy the book.

The gist of the book is that many foundational principles of the scientific worldview that we take for granted are not proven facts.  They are assumptions, and assumptions may always be questioned.  However, Sheldrake contends, the real life sociological phenomena we call science has its flaws like any other human institution.  Sometimes dogmas harden for the wrong reasons, and paradigm shifts need to occur when evidence piles up showing that the prevailing dogma requires revision, or replacement.  Sheldrake presents much evidence (in Science Set Free and his other books) to show that many of the scientific worldview's most dear foundational ideas are on shaky ground.  Sheldrake turns the assumptions into questions, and questions into chapters, including:

• Is Nature Mechanical?
• Is the Universe Purposeless?
• Are the Laws of Nature Fixed?
• Are Minds Confined to Brains?
• Is Mechanistic Medicine the Only Kind That Really Works?

Sheldrake's attack on unquestioned scientific dogma is so effective because of his deep respect of and adherence to the scientific method of free inquiry.  You must either side with Sheldrake in defense of science itself, or sacrifice the principles of "follow the evidence wherever it leads" in the service of today's prevailing beliefs.

Sheldrake definitely has a motive, and it comes out slowly in the text.  At first I thought he was trying to leave room for theism in a rational person's worldview, but that's not really it.  While he's apparently a practicing Christian, I would guess he's officially agnostic.  Anyway, his real agenda is his theory of Morphic Resonance, which is a controversial idea which I'm not going to go into because I don't know that much about it.  This is not a flaw of the book or Sheldrake, just something that helps you understand where the book is headed.

What impressed me most about the book was the many experiments he suggested which could prove or disprove his theories, including morphic resonance.  My judgement of the quality of these proposed experiments is in conflict with the harsh skepticism which greets Sheldrake's ideas in mainstream arenas, such as his Wikipedia article.

If at times Sheldrake sounds a little paranoid, you might forgive him, since everyone does in fact seem out to get him.  I think that's because he makes them uncomfortable by challenging their worldview.  I personally think the scientific worldview is great, but leaves a lot of very fundamental questions unanswered.  I agree with Sheldrake that taking our paradigms too religiously can constrict science and limit what we can learn.  I think I was already softened to this idea by Lee Smolin's The Trouble With Physics, which debunks the folly of string theory's domination of physics.  So I guess I'm just a softy for scientific rebels.  If you like the expanded possibilities that are enabled by free thinking, you might want to judge for yourself what Sheldrake has to say.