Top 15 Rupert Sheldrake Quotes

I learnt about plants from my father, who was a herbalist and an amateur microscopist.

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.

Contemporary science is based on the philosophy of materialism, which claims that all reality is material or physical.

Most of nature is inherently chaotic. It’s not rigidly determined in the old sense. It’s not rigidly predictable.

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.

Of the seven experiments, the ones that have been most investigated so far have been the pets. The dogs who know when their masters for coming home, and the sense of being stared at.

All research scientists know that writing in the passive voice is artificial; they are not disembodied observers, but people doing research.

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.

I still say the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ every day. It covers a lot of ground in our relation to the world.

I think hard work is what gets most people to the top.

Because a truly skeptical position would be a very uncertain one.

The sciences are being held back by assumptions that have hardened into dogmas, maintained by powerful taboos. I believe that the sciences will be regenerated when they are set free.

The simplest and cheapest of all reforms within institutional science is to switch from the passive to the active voice in writing about science.