*new* mind is more than brain (???)

How about the religion indu$try?

where am I being inaccurate

Roughly 15 percent in both surveys claimed to be agnostic or to have ''no definite belief'' ....

... while about 42 percent in 1916 and about 45 percent today said they did not believe in a God as specified in the questionnaire, although whether they believed in some other definition of a deity or an almighty being was not addressed.

You can't just read internet sources, you have to be able to discriminate,

Schizophrenia, however, is somewhat largely due to genetical error

Let's look at your numbers:[INDENT].... about 40 percent of the responding biologists, physicists and mathematicians said they believed in a God who, by the survey's strict definition, actively communicates with humankind and to whom one may pray ''in expectation of receiving an answer.'' Roughly 15 percent in both surveys claimed to be agnostic or to have ''no definite belief'' regarding the question, while about 42 percent in 1916 and about 45 percent today said they did not believe in a God as specified in the questionnaire, although whether they believed in some other definition of a deity or an almighty being was not addressed.[/INDENT]40% - Godbots
60% - not Godbots

OK. What do you think of these two statements:





Please take as much time as you wish to evaluate these two quotes, based upon the references that I provided on the related threads or any other references that you would like to use.

Rich

Evaluate what about them? They have nothing to do with the point I made and nothing to do with each other aside from the fact that they came from the same source. The first one was a one line statement. The second one was kind of tongue and cheek. That is my evaluation.

The problem with your survey, rich, is that it's too vague

You certainly can't use it to claim that 85% of scientists believe in God

Also it's too US-centric

But some are marvelously on target! I love quoting the creators of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Not the interpreters mind you. The CREATORS. Bless their souls.

Thanks for the comments. If you have any interesting quotes from the scientists you mentioned, I would be very interested in hearing them.

Here are a couple from Heisenberg that I like, and they pertain to the topic of this thread:

Natural science, does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves.

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

And Schrondinger:

A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement.

For a solitary animal egoism is a virtue that tends to preserve and improve the species: in any kind of community it becomes a destructive vice.

Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe.

Good stuff. Thanks!

Also, I hope that this thread can stay on topic, which began as a discussion of Sheldrake's morphic resonance theory. Thanks.

Rich

Also, I hope that this thread can stay on topic, which began as a discussion of Sheldrake's morphic resonance theory.

It's pseudoscientific twaddle whose predictions haven't been verified successfully by anyone other than Sheldrake

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 75 scientific papers and ten books. A former Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he was a Scholar of Clare College, took a double first class honours degree and was awarded the University Botany Prize. He then studied philosophy at Harvard University, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow, before returning to Cambridge, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University, where he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells. At Clare College he was also Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology.


From 1968 to 1969, based in the Botany Department of the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, he studied rain forest plants. From 1974 to 1985 he worked at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, where he was Principal Plant Physiologist. While in India, he also lived for a year and a half at the ashram of Fr Bede Griffiths in Tamil Nadu, where he wrote his first book, A New Science of Life. He is the current Perrott-Warrick Scholar and Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, near San Francisco, and an Academic Director and Visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut. He lives in London with his wife Jill Purce www.healingvoice.com and two sons.

Thanks. I appreciate it that you are attempting to stay on topic, and your views about this very well known scientist. I do want to underscore his credentials as a scientist and the way you described him:

Maybe his research on cell aging and tropical plants is absolutely brilliant

But that doesn't mean "morphic resonance" is anything other than twaddle

Maybe, maybe not (you would have to define twaddle for me, since I have not come across this word yet). Maybe is more brilliant than you?

A good place to start maybe would be for you to relate to me what have you read of his on this subject? Maybe we can discuss where you diverge from him?

Rich

Here is something I have read about MR. I'm not terribly impressed:

Rupert's Resonance: Scientific American[INDENT]Third, in 2000 John Colwell of Middlesex University in London conducted a formal test using Sheldrake's experimental protocol. Twelve volunteers participated in 12 sequences of 20 stare or no-stare trials each and received accuracy feedback for the final nine sessions. Results: subjects could detect being stared at only when accuracy feedback was provided, which Colwell attributed to the subjects learning what was, in fact, a nonrandom presentation of the trials. When University of Hertfordshire psychologist Richard Wiseman also attempted to replicate Sheldrake's research, he found that subjects detected stares at rates no better than chance.
[/INDENT](Although I did post this back on page 2.)

Thanks. I have read much more than you about the theory. Are you in a position to discuss the theory?

BTW, this is an interesting way to describe a scientist's work.

And if your ideas were described as such on this forum?

BTW, I would ask you to remove that image.

You're making it increasingly clear that you don't understand science.

Not everything that comes out of a distinguished scientist's mouth is to be taken for gospel.

That's the job of religion.

And besides, for this one guy who chooses to be a fringe whackjob in favoring your particular pet viewpoint, there are plenty of distinguished scientists who think he's full of it. Do Sheldrake's opinions carry more weight than theirs?

I'm pretty secure in my beliefs; I really wouldn't care.

No thanks. no point in this thread did I insult you. I'm just calling a spade a spade, rich.

Well, I think we have demonstrated that even simple conclusions of a study concerning religious beliefs of scientists can be interpreted in multiple ways.

I guess religion is based upon faith, unlike science.

You are certainly free to quote them and any studies that they may have performed that conclusively demonstrates that Sheldrake is a fringe whackjob as you describe him. BTW, is this conclusion based upon some study or are you acting on some faith?

Yes, that is what distinguishes a scientist from a religious believer.

It is fine with me. But it is a helluva precedent for discussions especially from someone who presumes to support the scientific side of the issue.

Describing Sheldrake's bag of poop as unfalsifiable is "supporting the scientific side of the issue"