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Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is a British biologist and author. He has researched and written on topics such as animal and plant development and behaviour, memory, telepathy and perception. Drawing on the work of French philosopher Henri Bergson, Sheldrake proposes that memory is inherent to all organically formed structures and systems, most notably organisms. Where Bergson denied that personal memories and habits are stored in brain tissue, Sheldrake goes a step further by dispensing with the notion that bodily forms and instincts are recorded in genes. Instead of relying on genetic information, the developing organism is brought under the influence of previous similar organisms by a hypothetical mechanism he has dubbed morphic resonance. ^[1] His work has been branded by some critics as pseudoscience.^[2][3]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Work 2.1 A New Science of Life 2.2 The Presence of the Past 2.3 Experimental test of the formative causation hypothesis 2.4 [possible section somewhere on] Holism in Science 2.5 Later work 2.6 The Sense of Being Stared At 3 Reception 4 Bibliography 5 References 6 See also 7 External links

[edit] Biography

Sheldrake was born in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire and grew up there.^[4] He studied biochemistry at the Clare College, Cambridge, graduating with a double First Class honours degree. He was a Frank Knox fellow at Harvard, studying philosophy and history. He returned to Cambridge where he gained a PhD in biochemistry and was a Fellow at Clare College. He was a Research Fellow of the Royal Society and later went to Hyderabad, India where he was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). For a year and a half he lived in the ashram of Bede Griffiths.^[4][5] In September 2005, Sheldrake received the Perrott-Warwick Scholarship for psychical research and parapsychology, which is administered by Trinity College, Cambridge.^[5][6]

In April 2008, Sheldrake was stabbed in the leg during a lecture at the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was presenting as part of the tenth annual International Conference on Science and Consciousness. A full recovery is expected. The assailant's motives are unknown.^[7][8]

[edit] Work

[edit] A New Science of Life

In his first book, A New Science of Life, Sheldrake put forward the hypothesis of formative causation (which he termed morphic resonance),^[9] and proposed that phenomena — particularly biological ones — become more probable the more often they occur, and therefore biological growth and behaviour become guided into patterns laid down by previous similar events. He suggested that this underlies many aspects of science, from evolution to laws of nature. Indeed, he suggested that the laws of nature are mutable habits that have evolved since the Big Bang.

This book was reviewed in a variety of scientific and religious publications. In a September 1981 piece entitled "A book for burning?", John Maddox, Nature's senior editor, commented on it, saying:

Sheldrake's argument is an exercise in pseudo-science. Many readers will be left with the impression that Sheldrake has succeeded in finding a place for magic within scientific discussion — and this, indeed, may have been a part of the objective of writing such a book.^[3]

Maddox elaborated in a 1994 BBC documentary on Sheldrake's theory:

Sheldrake's is not a scientific theory. Sheldrake is putting forward magic instead of science, and that can be condemned, in exactly the language that the Popes used to condemn Galileo, and for the same reasons: it is heresy.^[10]

[edit] The Presence of the Past

The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature puts forward morphic resonance, one aspect of the 'formative causation' hypothesis Sheldrake introduced in A New Science of Life, and presents evidence for it.^[11]

Sheldrake writes, "Since these past organisms are similar to each other rather than identical, when a subsequent organism comes under their collective influence, its morphogenetic fields are not sharply defined, but consist of a composite of previous similar forms. This process is analogous to composite photography, in which 'average' pictures are produced by superimposing a number of similar images. Morphogenetic fields are 'probability structures,' in which the influence of the most common past types combines to increase the probability that such types will occur again."^[12]

In support of his hypothesis, Sheldrake cites replications of William McDougall's experiment with rats in a water maze and Mae-Wan Ho's replication of Conrad Hal Waddington's experiment with fruit flies, as well as several psychology experiments involving human learning (none of which have been replicated). Sheldrake contends that a number of biological anomalies are resolved by morphic resonance, including personal memory (which otherwise requires the existence of an elaborate information-storage mechanism in the brain), atavism and parallel evolution. He argues that the existence of organizing fields — with or without inherent memory — would explain phenomena ranging from coordinated behavior among social insects, flocks of birds and schools of fish to the sense of phantom limbs among amputees, as the organizing field of a limb would remain even after the limb itself has been lost.^[12][I presume this is the correct reference]

[edit] Experimental test of the formative causation hypothesis

In 1990 neurobiologist Steven Rose experimented jointly with Sheldrake to test the hypothesis of morphic resonance.^[13] Rose predicted that the experiment would show no morphic resonance effects. Sheldrake predicted that it would.^[14]

The experiment turned out in favor of Rose, according to his analysis and that of several other mainstream scientists.^[13] Sheldrake, however, was still convinced that the experiment supported his theory. Sheldrake felt that there was a significant progressive difference between the behavior of the control and test birds.^[14]

In a separate paper, Rose responded that there were several confounding factors that skewed the results, and that there was no progressive trend. In an independent analysis of the data, biologist Patrick Bateson stated "[Sheldrake's] technique of looking at differences (and excluding the first week) is potentially misleading. ... As far as I can tell, the evidence ... runs counter to the prediction from the morphic resonance hypothesis, and [Sheldrake's] analysis obscures this fact".^[15]

[edit] [possible section somewhere on] Holism in Science

Sheldrake characterizes biology in terms of two competing schools of thought. In contrast to the currently dominant reductionist approach, which attempts to understand the organism by "reducing" it to the interactions of its parts, the holistic approach has long sought to understand the organism as a whole, like complex systems generally. [Balancing material stating mainstream science's opinion of Holism and of Sheldrake's place (centre, fringe, beyond-the-fringe?) in it]

[edit] Later work

Sheldrake recently researched human telepathy in an experiment where subjects guessed which of four people was going to telephone or send an email. According to his results, the subject guesses the person correctly about 40% of the time instead of the expected 25%.^[16]

Sheldrake said that some nursing mothers claim that when they are away from their baby they sometimes know when their baby needs them because their milk "lets down" (milk ejection reflex). Of 100 mothers surveyed, 62% had experienced milk let-down when away from their babies and 16% had noticed that this seemed to coincide with their baby needing them.^[17][18]

In 1994 Sheldrake proposed a list of Seven Experiments That Could Change the World, which included, among other things, the seed of his study of Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home (1999). In Seven Experiments... he encouraged lay people to contribute to scientific research, and argued that scientific experiments similar to his own could be conducted on a shoestring budget.^[19]

[edit] The Sense of Being Stared At

In 2003, Sheldrake published The Sense of Being Stared At on the psychic staring effect, including an experiment where blindfolded subjects guessed whether persons were staring at them or at another target. He reported that, in tens of thousands of trials, the scores were consistently above chance (60%) when the subject was being stared at, but only 50% (random chance) when the subject was not being stared at. This suggested a weak sense of being stared at but no sense of not being stared at. He also claimed that these experiments were widely repeated, in schools in Connecticut and Toronto and a science museum in Amsterdam, with consistent results.^[20]

David Marks and John Colwell criticized Sheldrake's experimental procedures.^[21] They suggested that the sequences Sheldrake has used in his research follow the same patterning that people who guess and gamble like to follow. These guessing patterns have relatively few long runs and many alternations. The non-randomness of Sheldrake's sequences may lead to implicit or explicit pattern learning when feedback is provided. When the patterns being guessed mirror naturally occurring guessing patterns, the results could go above or below chance levels even without feedback. Thus significant results can occur purely from nonrandom guessing. Non-randomization is one of seven flaws in parapsychological research identified by Marks.^[22]

Michael Shermer wrote in Scientific American that there are a number of objections to Sheldrake's experiments on the sense of being stared at, including Marks' and Colwell's point about non-randomization as well as confirmation bias and experimenter bias, and concluded that the Sheldrake's claim is unfalsifiable.^[23]

Sheldrake responded to Marks and Shermer that the experiments have been widely replicated, the results from an independent meta-analysis were shown to be highly significant, and that the Marks-Colwell suggestion of non-randomization has been refuted by thousands of trials with different randomization methods, including coin-tossing, yielding positive and highly statistically significant results, whatever the randomization method.^[24][25]

[edit] Reception

Sheldrake’s ideas have been subjected to extensive discussion in some journals and newspapers. Henry Bauer compared Sheldrake's ideas to Wilhelm Reich's generally discredited claims of orgone energies.^[26] Martin Gardner said that "Almost all scientists who have looked into Sheldrake's theory consider it balderdash."^[27]

Germano Resconi and Masoud Nikravesh, who are sympathetic to Sheldrake's ideas, acknowledged that "Morphic fields and its subset morphogenetic fields have been at the center of controversy for many years in mainstream science and the hypothesis is not accepted by some scientists who consider it a pseudoscience."^[28]

Sheldrake was invited to give a plenary presentation at the 2008 Toward a Science of Consciousness conference^[29] on his work on telepathy in animals and humans.^[30]

[edit] Bibliography

• A New Science of Life: the hypothesis of formative causation, Los Angeles, CA: J.P. Tarcher, 1981 (second edition 1985). ISBN 0874774594.
• The Presence of the Past: morphic resonance and the habits of nature, New York, NY: Times Books, 1988. ISBN 0812916662.
• The Rebirth of Nature: the greening of science and God, New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1991. ISBN 055307105X.
• Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: a do-it-yourself guide to revolutionary science, New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 1995. ISBN 1573220140.
• Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home: and other unexplained powers of animals, New York, NY: Crown, 1999. ISBN 0609600923.
• The Sense of Being Stared At: and other aspects of the extended mind, New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 2003. ISBN 060960807X.

With Ralph Abraham and Terence McKenna:

• Trialogues at the Edge of the West: chaos, creativity, and the resacralization of the world, Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Co. Pub., 1992. ISBN 0939680971.
• The Evolutionary Mind: trialogues at the edge of the unthinkable, Santa Cruz, CA: Dakota Books, 1997. ISBN 0963286110.
• Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness, Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 2001. ISBN 0892819774.
• The Evolutionary Mind: conversations on science, imagination & spirit, Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish Book Pub. Co., 2005. ISBN 0974935972.

With Matthew Fox (priest):

• Natural Grace: dialogues on creation, darkness, and the soul in spirituality and science, New York, NY: Doubleday, 1996. ISBN 0385483562.
• The Physics of Angels: exploring the realm where science and spirit meet, San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996. ISBN 0060628642.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Hindu idealism
• Fritjof Capra

[edit] External links

The external links in this article may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links.

• A Glorious Accident: Understanding Our Place in the Cosmic Puzzle (ISBN 0716731444), a PBS documentary and book interviewing six leading thinkers, Sheldrake among them
  • http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/glorious-accident/
  • http://www.films.com/id/7669/A_Glorious_Accident_Understanding_Our_Place_in_the_Cosmic_Puzzle.htm
• In Depth Podcast Interview with Rupert Sheldrake on Morphic Fields and "The Sense of Being Stared At"
• Sheldrake on How Controversial Science is Debated, Telepathy, and Richard Dawkins' 'neo-Darwinism'
• More details of his books from Skeptical Investigations
• Rupert Sheldrake: The delightful crackpot by David Bowman, Salon.com November 1999
• Text of Part I of The Sense of Being Stared At
• "The Sense of Being Glared At: What Is It Like to be a Heretic?" Anthony Freeman, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12, No. 6, 2005
• Sheldrake Online, the website of Rupert Sheldrake
• The psychic staring effect: An artifact of pseudo randomization from CSICOP
• Sheldrake's response to the CSICOP critique
• The Telepathy Debate, Royal Society of Arts, London, 15 January 2004 Speakers: Rupert Sheldrake and Lewis Wolpert

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