from Russell2

Hi LindaLou

“True Beleiver” is a derogatory term? I guess you learn something new every day. I’ve never heard of it being considered such. It does suggest a degree of close-mindedness but that’s about it.

Woo woo also is not a derogatory term though it does belittle his ideas. I’m sorry if that offends anyone but reading his website I think that is the only rational position to take. That may sound uncharitable and close minded but it’s certainly not intended to be derogatory. The point I was making is that we have detailed knowledge of the behaviours of quite a few fields, electrical/magnetic, gravitational, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force, electrostatic fields etc. What Sheldrake describes when he describes his morphic field is not a field in any sense of the word. He’s misusing a well defined term to describe something that is totally un-field like. His morphic field sounds more like an invisible, non physical form of DNA that can travel mystically from one organism to another. Fields don’t behave that way, not one of them that has ever been observed. Is it irrational to point that out? Fields simply do not hold information in the way he is suggesting and they do not act on information. At best he’s coopting the term field to something that is very un-field like to try to convey a foreign idea to his audience, at worst well I’ll let others decided what the worst ;possibility is lest I be charged again with being closed minded or unskeptical. If he can come up with some, field like, descriptions for his ‘morphic field’ then we’ll have something to work with but at the moment it really does sound a lot like woo woo designed to suck people into the idea that his thoughts are scientific. Now maybe much of the rest of his work is scientific but on this count he fall far short of it IMHO. If it’s unskeptical of me to look rationally at what he says and to point out that it’s illogical then so be it. Being open minded has to have limits; we don’t want our brains falling out do we.

I’ve read quite a few similar exchanges from Randi, he’s certainly a grumpy old man and more so in recent years but look at it form his point of view. The million dollar challenge has been running for many years now, it is looked after by a dedicated team not by Randi, and gets lots and lots of applicants, there are some very simple but specific rules around applying for the challenge the first of which is to fill in and submit an application form. From there it leads on through the steps of agreeing on the judges and designing the tests, setting up and conducting the simple, initial tests then going on to the full challenge test which carries the million dollars at the end. Many people have managed to get through this process and be tested though few have made it to the second round of testing. It’s not a very difficult process. Then we see people who believe they have a better way and demand that Randi run their test their way because they are too important to fill in the paper work and go through the process. Why does it surprise you that Randi is short with people who can’t fill in the application form and go through the standard procedure set down for the challenge?

In Reason

Russell