Skeptical About Skeptics: A Selection of Essays from the Website

by Cathi Carol, Rupert Sheldrake, Dean Radin

"The stream of human knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality. The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. … "Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter. We are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of this realm." — Sir James Jeans, physicist and astronomer, University of Cambridge and Princeton University "Skeptical About Skeptics", at skepticalaboutskeptics.org, is a multi-author online resource focusing on the impedimenta to scientific progressivism — changes of thinking according to the latest empirical findings, updated philosophies, and new thought — paradigm shifts necessary to keep science current. Scientific paradigm change, a century overdue, now, is resisted mightily within the scientific establishment, academia, and public opinion. Long-entrenched, out-of-date scientific belief systems, held by old guard thinkers, are promoted and furthered at the expense of modern scientific findings, empiricism, and understandings of reality, which are ridiculed, misrepresented, and suppressed as unscientific, philosophically unacceptable, or fringe. "Skeptical About A Selection of Essays from the Website", the anthology, is commentary by scientists — academics and writers, philosophers and educators, broadcasters and a Nobel Prize winner — on the current state of science being held back by itself. Scientific reactionism is occurring not only within science's guilds of researchers, philosophers, and educators but by deeply biased, closed minded, media-vocal individuals and groups of self entitled skeptics intent on protecting invalidated science dogma, beliefs and assertions that no longer work to explain our daily lives and experiences, empirical realities and discoveries, intuitions and hopes for the future. Science blames the public for a lack of scientific "savvy", but science's problems are self-imposed, issues of incorrect thinking, stubbornly held and protected, from within science's ancient and foundational fundamentalisms. Institutionalized skepticism, or fear of change in science, may seem like a small problem, even necessary, but has been devastating in its global impact, creating dire consequences for humanity. Indeed, it is contributing to worldwide environmental destruction, widespread psychological insecurity and distrust of science, and keeping science itself in its own dark ages, impeding the evolution of humankind. The Association for Skeptical Investigation, the organization that developed the website “Skeptical About Skeptics”, is devoted to the analysis and explication of dogmatic skepticism, the "pseudo-skepticism" which has long delayed scientific paradigm shift today; to bringing awareness of the pitfalls, problems, and irrationality of adamantine pseudo-skepticism to light within the public mind; and to the repudiation of the anti-science propagandized by pseudo-skeptics themselves. This anthology presents some of the best essays curated by the book's editor from the ”Skeptical About Skeptics” website and additional resources, introduces to the public The Association for Skeptical Investigation and like-minded colleagues, and will help you to identify, question, and challenge anti-scientific dogmatic skeptical thinking yourself. Ralph Abraham Stephen E. Braude Etzel Cardeña Ted Dace Larry Dossey Daniel Drasin Neal Grossman Janice Miner Holden Brian D.

290 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 5, 2018