Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by cpr 3274 days ago
An interesting (banned) TEDx talk by Rupert Sheldrake, one part on the changing "fundamental constants", starting here:

https://youtu.be/JKHUaNAxsTg?t=591

The other parts are a bit "woo" and I'm sure would be laughed at by the HN crowd. But his points about fundamental "constants" changing, and the metrologists' dogmatic (really, anti-scientific) response, are worth pondering.

1 comments

Just in case folks are unaware, this is the parapsychology guy that believes the following:

> Sheldrake's morphic resonance hypothesis posits that "memory is inherent in nature" and that "natural systems, such as termite colonies, or pigeons, or orchid plants, or insulin molecules, inherit a collective memory from all previous things of their kind" ... Sheldrake proposes that it is also responsible for "telepathy-type interconnections between organisms". His advocacy of the idea encompasses paranormal subjects such as precognition, telepathy and the psychic staring effect as well as unconventional explanations of standard subjects in biology such as development, inheritance, and memory.

The reason his TED talk was pulled is because he's a crank, and the entire talk is a confused defense of pure BS.

Yes, but did you watch the section on fundamental constants? Even if he's a crank, his questions are valid, and metrologists who define away problems with fundamental constant measurements are to be questioned.