If Sheldrake expects the journal Nature to eventually publish weekly reports on the current value of the speed of light, that's a pretty clear statement that he thinks the speed of light isn't constant. And making that claim is pretty convincing evidence that Sheldrake doesn't understand the physics that he's so upset about. If he actually understood what is meant by "we've now defined the speed of light to be a constant", he would phrase his argument in different terms. (It would still have a lot of major flaws, from the sound of it, but at least he wouldn't be immediately showing that he doesn't know what he's talking about.)
But even leaving aside that specific error, I still disagree with his premise. I work in high energy physics, and it's routine to see people discussing frameworks where our measured fundamental constants could change. Practically any mention of a "multiverse" in physics or cosmology draws on that idea, for instance. If there's a scientific dogma that's supposed to make us blindly reject those possibilities, it seems to be remarkably ineffective.
"Dogma 8: your mind is inside your head. All your consciousness is the activity of your brain and nothing more. Dogma 9: psychic phenomena like telepathy are impossible. Your thoughts and intentions cannot have any effect at a distance because your mind is inside your head. Therefore all the apparent evidence for telepathy and other psychic phenomena is illusory."
Sheldrake says these are science's "dogmas" (there are 10), and that they are all wrong.
Draw your own conclusions.
No he doesn't. You're just hearing what you want to hear.
"[I] take the ten dogmas or assumptions of science, and turn them into questions, seeing how well they stand up if you look at them scientifically. None of them stand up very well."
So "telepathy doesn't exist" does not stand up to scientific questioning? Come on man, you're better than this.
He's saying that the evidence for the 'ten dogmas' being true is weak, not that there is strong evidence for them being false.
>So "telepathy doesn't exist" does not stand up to scientific questioning?
He's not saying that telepathy exists, he's saying there isn't good reason to believe that it's impossible.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/first-direct-brain-to-brain-interf...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-brain-computer-interface-goes-...
Of course, it would be a bad idea to call these technologies "telepathy", as they're "simply" wireless brain-to-brain interfaces.
If biology hasn't gotten there yet, use tech.
As an open minded scientist, would you not want to test for evidence of such a phenomenon instead of following in the footsteps of flat-earthers, who tune out at the first sign of an idea that seems to question their beliefs?
There is so much about the universe we don't even begin to understand, from why anything exists at all to the nature and quality of consciousness. What baffles me is that all these supposedly open-minded rational people can presume to know so much to be "nonsense" about which science does not even claim to know anything at all.
I'm not sure why you are saying science claims not to know about telepathy. Every scientist I know would claim it doesn't exist because it's theoretically impossible and empirically never been observed.
He never says this. He says the measurements fluctuate, which means the speed of light itself may (or may not) fluctuate. But we will never know because it's been defined as a constant.