Chris,
You don't seem to realise that some of us see science as having developed in a lop-sided way. This is no criticism of anyone involved, but the end result is that we have enormous detail of certain things, but only a very vague set of ideas about consciousness. Try looking at some orthodox ideas about consciousness if you want to experience some hand waving arguments.
Consciousness and Ψ are so little understood that any theory has got to be a far more tentative affair. For example, it can't possibly have a mathematical component at this stage. Demonstrating that conscious behaviour is inconsistent with known physics (as presentiment seems to do) is a very significant result, and would be well worth more testing by the science community. RS's results are also inconsistent with physics (more or less the definition of the paranormal). You call this a desperate search for anomalies, but in reality it is an attempt to demonstrate that consciousness operates at a much deeper level than is normally understood - i.e. it is not simply a consequence of the operation of normal physical laws.
If skeptical scientists could easily rubbish Sheldrake's or Radin's work, I suspect they would, but instead they rely on trying to score debating points (which doesn't work, BTW in a head to head discussion with RS as you have probably already discovered if you have listened to his radio encounter with Peter Atkins or his public debate with Lewis Walpert).
Remember that a lot of scientific development has begun with mavericks picking away at orthodox ideas.
David  |