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Enemies of Science by Dr Manjir Samanta-Laughton
Richard Dawkins and fellow ‘old guard’ scientists are rallying the troops to attack all that they see as irrational and absurd. From homeopathy to dowsing to crystal healing, outcry against ‘superstitious nonsense’ is increasing as evidenced by programmes such as The Enemies of Reason shown on UK’s C4 in August 2007. In 2006, top academics scientists and doctors wrote an open letter in The Times warning of the unscientific nature of complementary therapies.
It all smacks of the dying gasps of a system in its final throes. The Newtonian, reductionist paradigm is grinding to a halt and as the new wave of science rises, the old guard make their inevitable and pitiful last grasp to hold on. As all of history demonstrates, Dawkins and his crew are simply repeating a pattern that has been seen at the start of every revolution in human consciousness. Trouble is, they are so entrenched in their own scientific religion that they cannot see how they have fashioned themselves into the new dogmatic establishment in the same tradition that attacked figures like Galileo.
What really irks them is the fact that the practices they see as irrational relics of a bygone era are being taken up by the pubic themselves. Nobody is forcing people to have therapies such as reflexology, there is no global organised New Age movement recruiting members with sinister mind control. These practices grow due to inner changes and realisations within people, causing them to seek others who have had similar experiences.
Ironically, as far as our current scientific model is concerned, psychic and so-called paranormal phenomena such as ESP have been proved many times over. To quote New Scientist, “by all the normal rules for assessing scientific evidence, the case for ESP has been made. And yet most scientists still refuse to believe the findings, maintaining that ESP simply does not exist.”
The standards of evidence are sometimes many times better than we have for our therapeutic drugs. Yet by not examining this plentiful evidence, Dawkins and crew can legitimately claim in bleating repetition “I’d believe it if I saw some evidence, but I don’t see any evidence,” posing in wide-eyed innocence and scientific openness. When in reality they are not much better than the bishops who would not look down the telescopes of Galileo in case their worldview became shaken to the core.
Not only is there proof for such phenomena, public opinion is behind them. Not from a place of gullible following, but from a place of knowing. This is the place of knowing that has caused the biggest reprint in the history of Simon and Schuster when it reprinted The Secret by Rhonda Byrne to the tune of 2 million copies. Despite having more weeks in the Top Ten of The Sunday Times bestseller list than Gordon Ramsey, the intelligentsia that write such papers over look these figures with an embarrassed cough. It is the sort of knowing that made the film, What the Bleep do we Know? which discusses the new wave of science, into the one of the most successful documentary film of all time, beating Bowling for Columbine and Super Size Me.
Saddest of all is to watch a man who has made his life the study of science, just not understanding it. Dawkins argues that there is so much wonder in the world that can be studied legitimately using the scientific method, why turn to irrational superstition? He fails to note that since the early 20th century, the study of the universe using the scientific method has opened up an anti-intuitive world of uncertainty and irrationality. Or that the new wave of science places consciousness at the heart of the cosmos, not as a side-effect of the neuronal firings of some selective mammalian brains whilst other species are simply robotic bags of molecules incapable of thought. What is the rationale behind deciding where consciousness exists and where it does not if you hardly even recognise its existence?
Dawkins invites us to study astronomy as a saviour to the irrationality of astrology, so that we can find solace in the certainly of the behaviour of the stars and galaxies. But it is here that the dying gasps of reductionism sob louder as the cosmos throws up more and more conundrums bringing astrophysicists to their knees.
Dawkins laments the need of the human race for ‘superstition’ in order to make themselves feel special. He feels that we simply do not wish to acknowledge that we are an insignificant part of a gigantic cosmos and nothing special at all: merely the mechanistic unfolding of fluke accidents of evolution.
Yet he leads us to an astronomy that is riddled with special events. Our current explanations for the high energy gamma ray bursts that fill our sky range from a speck of dust landing on a neutron star to black holes devouring each other. For only such high-energy events could explain the power of what we see all around us.
So we are expected to believe that fluke special events cause the commonplace to occur in our cosmos? Yet this is the best that astronomy has to offer: the weird, exotic and special causes the common. This is not science but speculation. Dawkins wants us to rid ourselves of the special, but leads us to a science that asks us to believe that’s how our cosmos works: the exotic causes the humdrum. Now who is being irrational!
A true scientist looks at the evidence and rather than force it to fit the theory that is propping up their research grant, wonders if there is another solution for the anomaly. They wonder if we might just have got it wrong. The universe is elegant simple and infinitely complex at the same time. We shouldn’t need special and exotic processes to create the commonplace. A simple elegant solution should suffice, but we need to open our minds to find it. And Dawkins, by urging us to look at astronomy as a science that is full of certainty leads us by the hand into one of our biggest ever breakdowns of reductionism. The truth is astronomy is faltering. We just don’t understand how the universe works, but with his sort of mind, we are never going to.
So it is with sadness that I watch my fallen hero slip into scientific superstitions: from the irrational belief that our current biology can fully explain the living phenomena around us to the erroneous idea that the cosmos is all worked out whilst the evidence flies in the face of all our theories. He has fallen into the trap of mistaking the scientific establishment for the universe itself and that is just not science.
Yet as with every revolution there are the new protagonists. The old die out and become long-gone relics leaving the new generation to wonder why they could not see what for them is common sense. I have met medical students who are healers - to them such things are natural and obvious and children as young as six standing up to their parents and defending their telepathic abilities.
As this new generation grow older, the old guard will start to fade. The new will need an updated science to explain their world, the world that they live in and experience. This is a world of multidimensional abilities, of interconnections beyond space and time and more. The movement in science to explain these concepts in terms of quantum physics and beyond is only just beginning. The beauty of this situation is that these ideas were discovered by accident. Looking into the universe using the very same scientific methods that Dawkins so firmly espouses has forced us into a new era beyond the rationalism that gave birth to it.
Dawkins laments the lack of science in the world. I say look to the science and there you will find the answers. Examine the evidence and see that modern medicine is failing to work, that our surgical and other treatments do not bother with randomised control trials either and that the numbers of patients we need to treat on a drug just to help one is just not acceptable.
Look to the trials of psychic research and see the evidence weighing heavy for years. Examine the pedigree and methods of those who do the work. Furthermore, look to the very science you espouse and find a brave new world of uncertainty and the interconnected consciousness that you say is just impossible. It is all there already.
When our universe throws up data that make us rethink all that we know, it is not acceptable to squeeze it into our narrow views, making absurd statements about the freak behaviour of black holes. Open your mind to expand into a new theory, one that doesn’t call for the exotic and special to be commonplace, but allows the universe to unfold in a simple elegant fashion that is ironically, in a way, more mundane.
But that mundane simplicity contains within it consciousness inherent in the very fabric of the cosmos and not just human brains, energy beyond that which we have ever known before and the eternal breath of the universe effortlessly creating high energy gamma rays and X-rays in alternate bursts. We no longer have to show distaste at the areas of the universe we cannot explain. The true scientific method starts with observation, not conclusion and what we observe can now start to be explained in a scientific manner and not just swept under the carpet.
So it is ironic that Dawkins and his friends in the old guard are making such fervent pleas to return to scientific values. He is falling down on the very issue he holds so dearly – science itself
Copyright Dr Manjir Samanta-Laughton 2007
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Richard Dawkins makes an enemy of the public
Review of Richard Dawkins C4 program “The Ememies of Reason”.
By James Gordon Graham 20/08/07
Last night, Professor Richard Dawkins aired his latest documentary 'Enemies of Reason' in which he attacked complementary health care and mysticism, subjects he sees as unscientific. Has he made an enemy of the public? He seems oblivous to the fact that most people in the UK have first-hand experience of the subjects he condemns.
In Dawkins’ own Darwinian paradigm he has no scientific explanation for what is going on, and it is clear to many that he has deliberately misled the country by not broadcasting the scientific results from many world class scientists who have proven the existence of the paranormal and complementary health therapies. It feels like he has gone too far this time in attacking what the majority of the world population have actually experienced, with many people claiming to have gained real benefit from alternative health care therapies.
Perhaps one of the most revealing aspects of 'Enemies of Reason' was what it did not show. A key person who was interviewed and subsequently cut out was Dr Rupert Sheldrake who studied biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, graduating with a double First Class honours degree. He held a fellowship and taught biology at Cambridge University (Clare College). Before his interview, Dr Sheldrake sent IWC the program makers, extensive data showing the scientific basis for the paranormal. During filming Dawkins’ revealed he had not even bothered to look at it - not an unusual establishment reaction, and certainly not the actions of a true scientist who is open and ready to creatively learn new experiences.
Although Professor Dawkins interviews some high calibre people he uses editing techniques with each in a pathetic attempt to humiliate them. He could have interviewed many more people with impeccable credentials like Professor Gary Schwartz, Professor Valerie Hunt, Professor Harry Oldfield, and Professor Bill Nelson each of whom have further evidence of the multidimensions. Yet even if he had interviewed them, I believe he would have tried to belittle them all.
The links between science and mysticism can be traced back further still. The newly revealed notebooks of Sir Isaac Newton show his overwelming preoccupation with the occult. It is from these experiences that he obtained the mathematics that underlines our current reductionist paradigm.
Indeed many of our greatest scientists like Einstein and Schauberger used their mysticism to understand the multidimensions, which helped them to create a new generation of scientific discovery we use today. In their time they were up against bullying skeptics (equivalent to Dawkins today), who would use any method to discredit them. The likes of Tesla, Schauberger and Reich had their laboratories or lifes work destroyed and had to endure great emotional pain to persevere with their experiments and beliefs.
The decline of interest for physics in UK schools was lamented in the program yet is it any wonder that children who naturally understand the multidimensions do not want to study a subject that is not inclusive of them. The buzz of creative thought that real scientific discovery creates has been all but neutered by an educational establishment that is more keen on passing exams and scientific orthodoxy than enhancing a child’s creativity.
Dawkins arrogantly claims that Black Holes gobble up things in the universe showing his ignorance about the latest cosmology which show creative bursts of energy coming out of their centre in the form of Gamma Rays and X-Rays and which provides the physical evidence for Dr Manjir Samanta-Laughtons ‘Black Hole Principle’ which describes the core creationist aspect of the universe. There was no proper scientific discussion about her book ‘Punk Science’ in which she has produced the first truly groundbreaking piece of visionary physics since Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg. This will give the next generation of creative scientists a template to seed a new wave of scientific discovery. Now this would really excite our students and school children into studying more physics.
Dawkins tried to humiliate every person he talked to yet Deepak Chopra called the scientific world of Dawkins arrogant in its ability to eradicate Polio but then cause many more illnesses as a consequence of its controlling behaviour.
It is an ironic paradox that the behavior of Professor Dawkins is beginning to backfire. He has recently attacked religion and now the spiritual. This is helping people to get off the fence and admit to benefitting from alternative therapies and experiencing the paranormal.
Many have been fearful of establishment bullies like Dawkins pouring scorn on their beliefs. His cowardly actions in editing without the right of reply and failing to convey the real evidence speaks volumes about the fear he unconsciously lives in. He was given the knowledge that he operates from "a core fear of being ignored,” this drives his behaviour to ridicule and humiliate people - which was projected on to the greater population through 'Enemies of Reason'. In a badly made, boring program, it really did show how far he is out of touch; the classic old guard academic hidden in an ivory tower of illusion.
What we are clearly seeing is the
death throes of the old scientific world as a new generation of open
minded scientists start to replace it.
Yet the positive element of this program could be that it has galvanised the public into finally realising the difference between spiritual / healing experiences and written religious doctrines. To develop consciously, every age has to become emotionally conscious. Humanity is currently accelerating forward in an exciting new wave of conscious development which includes a new science. The old guard is being exposed and is rapidly dying off.
On one level we can thank Professor Dawkins for providing the platform for us all to look at our emotionally unconscious behavior, and for this he is a great soul.
Copyright James Graham
20th Aug 2007
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