Rupert Sheldrake Quotes & Sayings

“Bad religion is arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. And so is bad science. But unlike religious fundamentalists, scientific fundamentalists do not realize that their opinions are based on faith. They think they know the truth.”

“The idea is that there is a kind of memory in nature. Each kind of thing has a collective memory. So, take a squirrel living in New York now. That squirrel is being influenced by all past squirrels.”

“Science at its best is an open-minded method of inquiry, not a belief system.”

“There's a certain kind of scepticism that can't bear uncertainty.”

“In both religion and science, some people are dishonest, exploitative, incompetent and exhibit other human failings.”

“I think that the 'laws of nature' are also prone to evolve; I think they are more like habits than laws.”

“For more than 200 years, materialists have promised that science will eventually explain everything in terms of physics and chemistry. Believers are sustained by the faith that scientific discoveries will justify their beliefs.”

“I went through the standard scientific atheist phase when I was about 14. I bought into that package deal of science equals atheism.”

“I have been a scientist for more than 40 years, having studied at Cambridge and Harvard. I researched and taught at Cambridge University, was a research fellow of the Royal Society, and have more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals. I am strongly pro-science.”

“To describe the overwhelming life of a tropical forest just in terms of inert biochemistry and DNA didn't seem to give a very full picture of the world.”