"The Spirit of Inquiry" is a concept and phrase used by biologist and enfant terrible Rupert Sheldrake in his book, The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry. In the US the title is Set Science Free as he feared the idea of 'delusion' would bracket the book along with creationists, etc.
It refers to a critical and questioning approach to science that challenges materialistic dogma by treating fundamental questions as open-ended, rather than already answered. Sheldrake argues that certain assumptions in modern science have become dogmas, hindering new lines of research, and that revitalizing the spirit of inquiry is necessary to discover a more complete understanding of reality.
His TedTalk on the topic was banned and removed – effectively an alternative opinion was censored by materialists – meanwhile he and his son continue to explore the wonders of nature and ask those questions that materialist science dismiss.
The Ten Dogmas of Science
1. Nature is mechanical.
2. Matter is unconscious.
3. Laws of nature are fixed.
4. Total amount of matter and energy are always the same.
5. Nature is purposeless.
6. Biological inheritance is material.
7. Memories are stored as material traces.
8. Mind is in the brain.
9. Telepathy and other psychic phenomena are illusory.
10. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.
I rather like this comment:
"I went through the standard scientific atheist phase when I was about 14,” he says, with a grin. “I bought into that package deal of science equals atheism. I was the only boy at my high Anglican boarding school who refused to get confirmed. When I was a teenager, I was a bit like Dawkins is today, you know: ‘If Adam and Eve were created by God, why do they have navels?’ That kind of thing.”
Not that he's embraced religion, but simply that he's seen the error of that outlook.
