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''''Alfred Rupert Sheldrake''' (born 28 June 1942) is a British biologist and author, most notable for his hypothesis of Morphic Resonance, his research into telepathy, and his public criticism of philosophical materialism in mainstream science.<ref>Chartras, Caroline (2011). Why I Am Still An Anglican: Essays and Conversations. London, UK: Continuum, New Ed. p. 119. ISBN 978-0826483126.</ref><ref name=Guardian>{{cite web|last=Adams|first=Tim|title=Rupert Sheldrake: the 'heretic' at odds with scientific dogma|url=http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/feb/05/rupert-sheldrake-interview-science-delusion|work=February 4, 2012|publisher=The Guardian}}</ref><ref name="New Scientist">{{cite web|last=Lawton|first=Graham|title=Science's greatest critic is no mood to recant|url=http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528793.100-sciences-greatest-critic-is-no-mood-to-recant.html|work=August 22, 2012|publisher=New Scientist|accessdate=7 October 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Sheldrake|first=Rupert|title=The Presence of the Past|year=2011|publisher=Icon Books LTD|location=London|isbn=978-1848313064|url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Presence-Past-Morphic-Resonance-Habits/dp/1848313063}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Sheldrake|first=Rupert|title=Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals|year=2000|publisher=Arrow (New Ed Edition)|isbn=978-0099255871|url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dogs-That-Their-Owners-Coming/dp/0099255871/ref=pd_sim_b_1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Sheldrake|first=Rupert|title=The Science Delusion|year=2012|publisher=Coronet|location=London|isbn=978-1444727944|url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Science-Delusion-Rupert-Sheldrake/dp/144472794X/ref=pd_sim_b_3}}</ref> Sheldrake defines morphic resonance as a process by which "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."<ref> </ref> Sheldrake claims his research into telepathy suggests the phenomenon is an extension of biology and thus a natural, not supernatural phenomenon that may often occur in the animal world between members of social groups. <ref></ref> | |||
'''Alfred Rupert Sheldrake''' (born 28 June 1942)<ref>{{cite book |author=McGrath, K. A. |date=1999 |title=World of biology |publisher=Gale}}</ref> is an English author, lecturer and ].<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Nature |date=14 September 2006 |volume=443 |page=132 |title=Overhyped |url=http://www.scribd.com/doc/36163552/NPG-nature-vol-443-Issue-7108-Sep}}</ref><ref name=profession>{{cite journal |journal=New Scientist |title=When science meets the paranormal |url=http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18124380.200-when-science-meets-the-paranormal.html |date=13 March 2004 |volume=2438}}</ref> He was formerly a ] and ] at the ] and elsewhere.<ref name=profession/><ref name=bio1/> Since 1981, his writings have largely been centred on his ] of "morphic resonance"; Sheldrake 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."<ref name=presencepast/> He argues that morphic resonance is also responsible for "telepathy-type interconnections between organisms".<ref name=bio2/> As such, his work advocating the hypothesis encompasses subjects such as animal and plant development and behaviour as well as various parapsychological claims involving memory, ], perception and cognition.<ref name=presencepast/><ref name=ansl-reissue/> | |||
Sheldrake’s work on morphic resonance and telepathy has been criticized by notable scientists, skeptical organizations, and science journalists, with some claiming it is pseudoscience, unsupported by evidence, and others labeling it as magical thinking and heresy.<ref>{{cite web|last=Dace|first=Ted|title=The Anti-Sheldrake Phenomenon|url=http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/Debates/Dace_Anti-SheldrakePhenomenon.html|publisher=Skeptical Investigations|accessdate=7 October 2013}}</ref><ref name="Science Move On">{{cite web|last=Vernon|first=Mark|title=It's time for science to move on from materialism|url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/28/science-move-away-materialism-sheldrake|work=January 28, 2012|publisher=The Guardian|accessdate=7 October 2013}}</ref> | |||
Sheldrake also argues that ] has become a series of ] rather than an open-minded approach to investigating phenomena. He questions such principles as ] and says the possibility of ] devices should be explored,<ref name=delusion/> despite broad ] that conservation of energy is fundamental and that perpetual motion is ].<ref>{{cite book |author1=Spellman, F. R. |author2=Price-Bayer, J. |year=2011 |title=In Defense of Science: Why Scientific Literacy Matters |publisher=Government Institutes |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=TTq_AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA81 |page=81}}</ref> | |||
Reactions from the scientific community and the debate surrounding Sheldrake's ideas have been analyzed in public debates, books, documentaries, television programs, scientific and skeptical journals, and academia.<ref>^ Durr, Hans-Peter;, Gottwald, Franz-Leo (1999). Rupert Sheldrake in der Diskussion. Das Wagnis einer neuen Wissenschaft des Lebens . Berlin: Fischer Scherz. ISBN 9783502191698.</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Watts|first=Fraser|title=Morphic Fields and Extended Mind An Examination of the Theoretical Concepts of Rupert Sheldrake|url=http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2011/00000018/F0020011/art00009|work=2011|publisher=Journal of Consciousness Studies|accessdate=7 October 2013}}</ref><ref>^ "The Glorious Accident". LibraryThing. Retrieved 6 October 2013.</ref><ref>^ Wolpert, Lewis; Sheldrake, Rupert. "What can DNA tell us? Place your bets now". July 8, 2009. New Scientist. Retrieved 6 October 2013.</ref> | |||
Scientists who have specifically examined Sheldrake's morphic resonance proposals have rejected them as pseudoscience and ], citing a lack of evidence supporting the hypothesis and the inconsistency of the hypothesis with established ]. More broadly, critics express concern that his books and public appearances attract popular attention in a way that has a negative impact on the public's understanding of science.{{efn|Sources: | |||
* reject the hypothesis<ref name=gardner/><ref name=samuel/><ref name=sharma/><ref name=hood/><ref name="Wolpert 1984"/> | |||
* reject as pseudoscience<ref name=sharma/><ref name="Wolpert 1984"/><ref name="Maddox 1981"/><ref name=rose/><ref name=impostures/> | |||
* reject as magical thinking<ref name="Maddox 1981"/><ref name=skepdic/> | |||
* lack of evidence supporting the hypothesis<ref name=hood/><ref name=Rutherford/><ref name=sciam/><ref name="Blackmore 2009"/><ref name="Rose 1988"/> | |||
* inconsistency of the hypothesis with established scientific theories<ref name="Wolpert 1984"/><ref name="Blackmore 1999"/> | |||
* impact on the public's understanding of science<ref name=whitfield/><ref name="Maddox 1981"/><ref name=rose/><ref name=Rutherford/> | |||
}} | |||
Sheldrake has been described as a ] author<ref name=gunther/><ref name=frazier/> and has gained popularity among many in the New Age movement who contend that he lends scientific credibility to their beliefs.<ref name=hanegraaff/><ref name=heretics/> Sheldrake has not endorsed these interpretations.<ref name=hanegraaff/> | |||
==Early life and education== | ==Early life and education== |
Revision as of 05:45, 10 October 2013
Rupert Sheldrake | |
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photograph | |
Born | (1942-06-28) 28 June 1942 (age 82) Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire |
Nationality | British |
Education |
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Occupation(s) | Biochemist, parapsychologist, writer |
Employer | The Perrott-Warrick Fund (2005–2010) |
Website | www.sheldrake.org |
'Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is a British biologist and author, most notable for his hypothesis of Morphic Resonance, his research into telepathy, and his public criticism of philosophical materialism in mainstream science. Sheldrake defines morphic resonance as a process by which "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 claims his research into telepathy suggests the phenomenon is an extension of biology and thus a natural, not supernatural phenomenon that may often occur in the animal world between members of social groups.
Sheldrake’s work on morphic resonance and telepathy has been criticized by notable scientists, skeptical organizations, and science journalists, with some claiming it is pseudoscience, unsupported by evidence, and others labeling it as magical thinking and heresy.
Reactions from the scientific community and the debate surrounding Sheldrake's ideas have been analyzed in public debates, books, documentaries, television programs, scientific and skeptical journals, and academia.
Early life and education
Sheldrake was born in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire to Doris (née Tebbutt) and Reginald Alfred Sheldrake (1903-1970). His father, who graduated from Nottingham University with a degree in pharmacy, was an amateur naturalist and microscopist and encouraged his son's interest in plants and animals.
Sheldrake was educated at Worksop College and Clare College, Cambridge (with a year at Harvard University) where he obtained a BA and PhD in biochemistry researching plant development and plant hormones.
Academic career
Sheldrake began his post-doctoral work as a research fellow of Clare College, where he was director of studies in biochemistry and cell biology and received funding from a research fellowship of the Royal Society. During this time he studied the plant hormone auxin which plays a role in plant vascular cell differentiation and published a number of papers related to the topic. Sheldrake says he ended this line of study when he concluded that "the system is circular, it does not explain how established to start with. After nine years of intensive study, it became clear to me that biochemistry would not solve the problem of why things have the basic shape they do." Regarding morphic resonance he recounts,
The idea came to me in a moment of insight and was extremely exciting. It interested some of my colleagues at Clare College - philosophers, linguists, and classicists were quite open-minded. But the idea of mysterious telepathy-type interconnections between organisms and of collective memories within species didn’t go down too well with my colleagues in the science labs. Not that they were aggressively hostile; they just made fun of it. Whenever I said something like, "I’ve just got to go and make a telephone call," they said, "Ha, ha, why bother? Do it by morphic resonance!"
He resigned his position at Clare College and went to work on the physiology of tropical crops in Hyderabad, India, as Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics from 1974 to 1985. There he published a number of papers on crop physiology and co-authored a book on the anatomy of the pigeonpea. For a year and a half he lived in the ashram of Bede Griffiths where he wrote A New Science of Life.
Since 2004 Sheldrake has been a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute in Bethany, Connecticut, where he was also academic director of the Holistic Learning and Thinking Program until 2012. From September 2005 until 2010, Sheldrake was a Senior Researcher in psychical research, funded by a bequest (the Perrott-Warrick Fund) administered by Trinity College, Cambridge.
Books
A New Science of Life and The Presence of the Past
Sheldrake's A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance was published in 1981. In it he proposed that through "morphic resonance" various perceived 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. As a result, he suggests that newly acquired behaviours can be passed down to future generations − a biological proposition akin to Lamarckian inheritance. He generalizes this approach to assert that it explains many aspects of science, from evolution to laws of nature; in Sheldrake's formulation, laws of nature are merely mutable habits, evolving and changing since the Big Bang.
In September 1981, Nature published an editorial about A New Science of Life entitled "A book for burning?" Authored by John Maddox, the journal's senior editor, the editorial said
...Sheldrake's book is a splendid illustration of the widespread public misconception of what science is about. In reality, Sheldrake's argument is in no sense a scientific argument but 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.
Maddox concluded that the book should not be burned, but this didn't prevent the article title from being widely publicised. In a subsequent issue, Nature published several letters which expressed disapproval of the editorial, including one by physicist B. D. Josephson who criticised Maddox for "a failure to admit even the possibility that genuine physical facts may exist which lie outside the scope of current scientific descriptions." In 2009 an editor for Nature said that Maddox's reference to book burning backfired, although since the publication of A New Science of Life Sheldrake's morphic resonance continues to be widely regarded as pseudoscience.
In his next book, The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature (1988), Sheldrake expanded on his morphic resonance hypothesis and marshalled experimental evidence which he said supported the hypothesis. The book was reviewed favourably in New Scientist by historian Theodore Roszak who called it "engaging, provocative" and "a tour de force". When the book was re-issued in 2011 with these quotes on the front cover, New Scientist remarked, "Back then, Roszak gave Sheldrake the benefit of the doubt", and added that if New Scientist were to review the re-issue, the book's publisher "wouldn't be mining it for promotional purposes."
Sheldrake's morphic resonance hypothesis is discredited by numerous critics on many grounds. These grounds include the lack of evidence for the hypothesis and the inconsistency of the hypothesis with established scientific theories. Morphic resonance is also seen as lacking scientific credibilty for being overly vague and unfalsifiable. Further, Sheldrake's experimental methods have been criticised for being poorly designed and subject to experimenter bias, and his analyses of results have also drawn criticism.
In 2009 a revised and expanded edition of A New Science of Life was published in the United States under the title Morphic Resonance: The Nature of Formative Causation.
Seven Experiments and Dogs That Know
In 1994 Sheldrake proposed a list of Seven Experiments That Could Change the World. 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. This included the seed of Sheldrake's next book, Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home (1999), which covered his research into telepathy between humans and animals, particularly dogs.
Prior to the publication of Dogs That Know, Richard Wiseman independently conducted an experimental study with one of the dogs mentioned in the book and concluded that the evidence gathered did not support telepathy.
The Sense of Being Stared At
In 2003 Sheldrake published The Sense of Being Stared At which explored telepathy, precognition, and the "psychic staring effect". It included an experiment where blindfolded subjects guessed whether persons were staring at them or at another target. He reported that in thousands of trials, around 60 percent of subjects reported being stared at when being stared at; around 50 percent (even chance) of subjects reported being stared at when they were not being stared at. Despite various efforts, scientists have been unable to duplicate these results.
The Science Delusion / Science Set Free
The Science Delusion, published on 1 January 2012 in the UK and in the US on 4 September 2012 as Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery, summarises much of Sheldrake's previous work and encapsulates it into a broader critique of philosophical materialism, with the title apparently mimicking that of The God Delusion by one of his critics, Richard Dawkins. In an interview with Fortean Times, Sheldrake denied that Dawkins' book was the inspiration for his own, saying, "The title was at the insistence of my publishers, and the book will be re-titled in the USA as Science Set Free... Dawkins is a passionate believer in materialist dogma, but the book is not a response to him".
Sheldrake proposes a number of questions as the theme of each chapter which seek to elaborate on his central premise that science is predicated on the belief that the nature of reality is fully understood, with only minor details needing to be filled in. This "delusion" is what Sheldrake argues has turned science into a series of dogmas grounded in philosophical materialism rather than an open-minded approach to investigating phenomena. He argues that there are many powerful taboos that circumscribe what scientists can legitimately direct their attention towards. The mainstream view of modern science is that it proceeds by methodological naturalism and does not require philosophical materialism.
Sheldrake questions conservation of energy; he calls it is a "standard scientific dogma", says that perpetual motion devices and inedia should be investigated as possible phenomena, and claims that "the evidence for energy conservation in living organisms is weak". He argues in favour of alternative medicine and psychic phenomena, saying that their recognition as being legitimate is impeded by a "scientific priesthood" with an "authoritarian mentality". Citing his earlier "psychic staring effect" experiments and other reasons, he claims that minds are not confined to brains and remarks that "liberating minds from confinement in heads is like being released from prison." He suggests that DNA is insufficient to explain inheritance, and that inheritance of form and behavior is mediated through morphic resonance. He also promotes morphic resonance in broader fashion as an explanation for other phenomena such as memory.
New Scientist characterised Science Set Free as "woolly credulousness" and chided Sheldrake for "uncritically embracing all kinds of fringe ideas". A review in Philosophy Now called the book "disturbingly eccentric", combining "a disorderly collage of scientific fact and opinion with an intrusive yet disjunctive metaphysical programme".
The book was positively reviewed in The Guardian by philosopher Mary Midgley who welcomed it as "a new mind-body paradigm" to address "the unlucky fact that our current form of mechanistic materialism rests on muddled, outdated notions of matter". Writer and former Anglican priest Mark Vernon also positively reviewed the book. In another review, Deepak Chopra commended Sheldrake for wanting "to end the breach between science and religion".
Public appearances
Sheldrake has received popular coverage through newspapers, radio, television and speaking engagements.
An experiment involving measuring the time for subjects to recognize hidden images, with morphic resonance being posited to aid in recognition, was conducted in 1984 by the BBC popular science programme Tomorrow's World. In the outcome of the experiment, one set of data yielded positive results and another set yielded negative results.
Sheldrake was the subject of one episode in a six-part documentary series called Heretics of Science, broadcast on BBC 2 in 1994. Discussing his 1981 Nature editorial "A book for burning?" on the show, John Maddox said Sheldrake's morphic resonance "is not a scientific theory. Sheldrake is putting forward magic instead of science, and that can be condemned with exactly the language that the Pope used to condemn Galileo, and for the same reasons: it is heresy." The broadcast repeatedly displayed footage of book burning, sometimes accompanied by audio of a crowd chanting "heretic". Biologist Steven Rose criticised the broadcast for focusing on Maddox's rhetoric as if it was "all that mattered". "There wasn't much sense of the scientific or metascientific issues at stake", Rose said.
In 2006, Sheldrake spoke at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science about experimental results on telepathy replicated by "a 1980s girl band", drawing criticism from Peter Atkins, Lord Winston, and Richard Wiseman. The Royal Society also reacted to the event saying, "Modern science is based on a rigorous evidence-based process involving experiment and observation. The results and interpretations should always be exposed to robust peer review."
In January 2013, Sheldrake gave a TEDx lecture at TEDxWhitechapel in East London roughly summarizing ideas from his book, The Science Delusion. In his talk, Sheldrake claimed that modern science rests on ten dogmas which "fall apart" upon examination and promoted his hypothesis of morphic resonance. According to a statement issued by TED staff, TED’s scientific advisors "questioned whether his list is a fair description of scientific assumptions" and believed that "there is little evidence for some of Sheldrake’s more radical claims, such as his theory of morphic resonance". The advisors recommended that the talk "should not be distributed without being framed with caution". The video of the talk was moved from the TEDx YouTube channel to the TED blog accompanied by framing language. This prompted accusations of censorship, to which TED responded by saying the accusations are "simply not true" and that Sheldrake's talk is "up on our website".
The attention Sheldrake receives has raised concerns that it adversely affects the public understanding of science. Scientists have accused Sheldrake of self-promotion, with one commenting, "for the inventors of such hypotheses the rewards include a degree of instant fame which is harder to achieve by the humdrum pursuit of more conventional science."
Interactions with notable scientists
In 1982 Sheldrake and David Bohm published a dialogue in which they compared Sheldrake's ideas to Bohm's implicate order. Physicist Hans-Peter Dürr in 1997 had speculated on Sheldrake's work in relation to modern physics. Sheldrake had been prominently cited in Alan Sokal's preposterous paper which became known as the Sokal hoax.
Sheldrake has entered into a scientific wager with developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert on the importance of DNA in the developing organism. Wolpert bet Sheldrake "a case of fine port" that "By 1 May 2029, given the genome of a fertilised egg of an animal or plant, we will be able to predict in at least one case all the details of the organism that develops from it, including any abnormalities." Sheldrake denies that DNA contains a recipe for morphological development. The Royal Society will be asked to determine the winner if the result is not obvious.
Origin and philosophy of morphic resonance
Among his early influences Sheldrake cites The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. Sheldrake says that this book led him to view the contemporary scientific understanding of life as a paradigm, which he called "the mechanistic theory of life". After reading Kuhn's work, Sheldrake was motivated by this view about how paradigms in science can change.
Although there are similarities between morphic resonance and Hinduism's akashic records, Sheldrake says he conceived the idea of morphic resonance while in Cambridge, before his travel to India where he would later develop it. He attributes the origin of morphic resonance to two influences: his studies of the holistic tradition in biology, and French philosopher Henri Bergson's book Matter and Memory. Sheldrake says he took Bergson's concept of memories not being materially embedded in the brain and generalized it to morphic resonance, where memories are not only immaterial but are under the influence of collective past memories of similar organisms. While his colleagues in Cambridge were not receptive to the idea, Sheldrake found the opposite to be true in India. He recounts his Indian colleagues saying, "There's nothing new in this, it was all known millennia ago to the ancient rishis." Sheldrake thus characterizes morphic resonance as a convergence between Western and Eastern thought, having originated in the West and developed in the East.
Sheldrake has also noted similarities between morphic resonance and Carl Jung's collective unconscious with regard to collective memories being shared across individuals and the coalescing of particular behaviours through repetition described by Jung as archetypes. However where Jung had assumed a physical explanation for the collective unconscious, Sheldrake rejects any such explanation involving what he terms "mechanistic biology".
Personal life
Rupert is married to Jill Purce, and they have two sons.
Sheldrake has a Methodist background but after a spell as an atheist found himself being drawn back to Christianity when in India, and is now an Anglican.
In April 2008, Sheldrake was stabbed in the leg by a mentally ill man during a lecture in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sheldrake has since recovered.
Bibliography
- A New Science of Life: the hypothesis of formative causation, Los Angeles, CA: J.P. Tarcher, 1981 (second edition 1985, third edition 2009). ISBN 978-1-84831-042-1.
- The Presence of the Past: morphic resonance and the habits of nature, New York, NY: Times Books, 1988. ISBN 0-8129-1666-2.
- The Rebirth of Nature: the greening of science and God, New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1991. ISBN 0-553-07105-X.
- Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: a do-it-yourself guide to revolutionary science, New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 1995. ISBN 1-57322-014-0.
- Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home: and other unexplained powers of animals, New York, NY: Crown, 1999 (second edition 2011). ISBN 978-0-307-88596-8.
- The Sense of Being Stared At: and other aspects of the extended mind, New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 2003. ISBN 0-609-60807-X.
- The Science Delusion: Freeing the spirit of enquiry, London: Coronet, 2012. ISBN 978-1-4447-2795-1.
- Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery. Deepak Chopra, 2012. ISBN 978-0770436704.
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 0-939680-97-1.
- The Evolutionary Mind: trialogues at the edge of the unthinkable, Santa Cruz, CA: Dakota Books, 1997. ISBN 0-9632861-1-0.
- Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness, Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 2001. ISBN 0-89281-977-4.
- The Evolutionary Mind: conversations on science, imagination & spirit, Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish Book Pub. Co., 2005. ISBN 0-9749359-7-2.
With Matthew Fox:
- Natural Grace: dialogues on creation, darkness, and the soul in spirituality and science, New York, NY: Doubleday, 1996. ISBN 0-385-48356-2.
- The Physics of Angels: exploring the realm where science and spirit meet, San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996. ISBN 0-06-062864-2.
See also
- Fritjof Capra
- Epigenetics
- Hundredth monkey effect
- Noosphere
- Bodo Sperling
- Synchronicity
- Lyall Watson
Notes
References
- Chartras, Caroline (2011). Why I Am Still An Anglican: Essays and Conversations. London, UK: Continuum, New Ed. p. 119. ISBN 978-0826483126.
- Adams, Tim. "Rupert Sheldrake: the 'heretic' at odds with scientific dogma". February 4, 2012. The Guardian.
- Lawton, Graham. "Science's greatest critic is no mood to recant". August 22, 2012. New Scientist. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
- Sheldrake, Rupert (2011). The Presence of the Past. London: Icon Books LTD. ISBN 978-1848313064.
- Sheldrake, Rupert (2000). Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals. Arrow (New Ed Edition). ISBN 978-0099255871.
- Sheldrake, Rupert (2012). The Science Delusion. London: Coronet. ISBN 978-1444727944.
- Dace, Ted. "The Anti-Sheldrake Phenomenon". Skeptical Investigations. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
- Vernon, Mark. "It's time for science to move on from materialism". January 28, 2012. The Guardian. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
- ^ Durr, Hans-Peter;, Gottwald, Franz-Leo (1999). Rupert Sheldrake in der Diskussion. Das Wagnis einer neuen Wissenschaft des Lebens . Berlin: Fischer Scherz. ISBN 9783502191698.
- Watts, Fraser. "Morphic Fields and Extended Mind An Examination of the Theoretical Concepts of Rupert Sheldrake". 2011. Journal of Consciousness Studies. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
- ^ "The Glorious Accident". LibraryThing. Retrieved 6 October 2013.
- ^ Wolpert, Lewis; Sheldrake, Rupert. "What can DNA tell us? Place your bets now". July 8, 2009. New Scientist. Retrieved 6 October 2013.
- ^ Chartres, Caroline, ed. (June 2006). Why I Am Still an Anglican: Essays and Conversations. Continuum.
- Marriage record registered in September 1934, @ FreeBMD Images ref 1934M3-T-0308
- "Birth record". findmypast.co.uk.
- Marriage record registered in September 1934, @ FreeBMD Images ref 1934M3-S-0193
- "Reginald Sheldrake Upon his Graduation, Newark, c 1924". Picturethepast.org.uk. Retrieved 3 January 2012.
- ^ Sheldrake, Rupert. "Biography of Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D. – Part II". Sheldrake.org. Retrieved 28 May 2008.
- ^ Sheldrake, Rupert. "Biography of Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D." sheldrake.org. Retrieved 18 Mar. 2013.
{{cite web}}
: Check date values in:|accessdate=
(help) - ^ Lemley, B. (2000). "Heresy". Discover. 21(8): 60–65.
- "Papers on Auxin Transport in Plants". sheldrake.org.
- "Papers on Hormone Production in Plants". sheldrake.org.
- Sheldrake, Rupert. "Papers on Crop Physiology". sheldrake.org.
- Bisen, S. S.; Sheldrake, A. R. (1981). The anatomy of the pigeonpea. ICRISAT.
- "ht_faculty". The Graduate Institute. archive.org.
- Sheldrake, Rupert. "Biography of Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D." archive.org.
- Sheldrake, Rupert. "The Perrott-Warrick Project". Sheldrake.org. Retrieved 27 August 2012.
- Sheldrake, Rupert (1981). A New Science of Life: the hypothesis of formative causation. Los Angeles, CA: J.P. Tarcher.
- ^ Maddox, John (24 September 1981). "A book for burning?" (PDF). Nature. 293 (5830): 245–246. Bibcode:1981Natur.293R.245.. doi:10.1038/293245b0.
...Sheldrake's argument is in no sense a scientific argument but is an exercise in pseudo-science.
- ^ Rutherford, Adam (6 February 2009). "A book for ignoring: Sheldrake persists in his claims, despite the fact that there's no evidence for them. This is bad science". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 Jul. 2013.
{{cite web}}
: Check date values in:|accessdate=
(help) - Maddox, J. (1999). "Dogs, telepathy and quantum mechanics". Nature. 401(6756): 849–850. Bibcode:1999Natur.401..849M. doi:10.1038/44696.
- ^ Josephson, B. D. (1981). "Incendiary subject". Nature. 293: 594.
- Clarke, C. J. S. (1981). "Incendiary subject". Nature. 293: 594.
- Hedges, R. (1981). "Incendiary subject". Nature. 293: 506.
- Cousins, F. W. (1981). "Incendiary subject". Nature. 293: 506–594.
- ^ Wolpert, Lewis (11 January 1984). "A matter of fact or fancy?: SECOND OPINION". The Guardian. p. 11.
- Sharma, Ruchir (2012). Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles. WW Norton & Company.
Despite Sheldrake's legitimate scientific credentials, his peers have roundly dismissed his theory as pseudoscience.
- ^ Rose, S. (1992). "So-called "Formative Causation". A Hypothesis Disconfirmed. Response to Rupert Sheldrake" (pdf). Riv. Biol./Biol. Forum. 85: 445–453.
Along with parapsychology, corn circles, creationism, ley-lines and "deep ecology", "formative causation", or "morphic resonance" has many of the characteristics of such pseudosciences...
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ignored (help) - de Pracontal, M. (1986). L'imposture scientifique en dix leçons. Editions La Découverte.
- ^ Sheldrake, Rupert (2011). The presence of the past: Morphic resonance and the habits of nature. Icon Books.
- Lawton, Graham (14 June 2011). "Sheldrake book: Did we really say that?". New Scientist.
- ^ Shermer, Michael. "Rupert's Resonance". Scientific American. Retrieved 13 Jul. 2013.
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(help) - Blackmore, Susan (4 February 2009). "An idea with resonance: More than anything, Sheldrake's continuing popularity is rooted in our need to believe". The Guardian.
- Rose, Steven (13 April 1988). "Some facts that just don't resonate: Second opinion". The Guardian. p. 27.
- ^ Blackmore, S. (27 August 1999). "If the truth is out there, we've not found it yet". The Times Higher Education Supplement. 18.
- ^ Marks, D., & Coiwell, J. (September/October, 2000). "The psychic staring effect: An artifact of pseudo-randomization". Skeptical Inquirer. 41: 49.
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(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Psi wars: Getting to grips with the paranormal. Imprint Academic. 2003.
Rupert Sheldrake's (1994) popular book Seven Experiments That Could Change the World is more of a collection of seven deadly sins of science and, from a philosophy of science standpoint, a documentation of the reasons why parapsychology is regarded as pseudoscience.
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ignored (help) - ^ Wiseman, Richard; Smith, Matthew; Milton, Julie (2000). "The 'psychic pet' phenomenon: a reply to Rupert Sheldrake" (pdf). Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.
- ^ Sheldrake, Rupert (2009). Morphic resonance: the nature of formative causation. Inner Traditions/Bear & Co.
- Sheldrake, Rupert (1995). Seven experiments that could change the world: a do-it-yourself guide to revolutionary science. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
- Sheldrake, Rupert (1999). Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home: and other unexplained powers of animals. New York, NY: Crown.
- Wiseman, R.; Smith, M.; Milton, J. (1998). "Can animals detect when their owners are returning home? An experimental test of the 'psychic pet' phenomenon" (pdf). British Journal of Psychology. 89(3): 453–462.
- Sheldrake, Rupert (2003). The Sense of Being Stared At: and other aspects of the extended mind. New York, NY: Crown Publishers.
- Baker, R. A. (2000). "Can We Tell When Someone is Staring at Us?". Skeptical Inquirer. 24(2): 34–40.
- ^ Sheldrake, Rupert (2012). The Science Delusion: Freeing the spirit of enquiry. London: Coronet.
- Marshall, Steve (2012). "The Science Delusion". Fortean Times. Vol. 286. p. 38.
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ignored (help) - Pigliucci, Massimo (2010). Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. University Of Chicago Press. p. 192.
- Lawton, Graham (31 August 2012). "Science's greatest critic is no mood to recant". New Scientist.
- Greenbank, John (July/August 2013). "The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake". Philosophy Now.
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(help) - Midgley, Mary (27 January 2012). "The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake - review". The Guardian.
- Vernon, Mark (28 January 2012). "It's time for science to move on from materialism". The Guardian.
- Chopra, Deepak (2 November 2012). "Science Set Free - Good News for Lumbering Robots". San Francisco Chronicle.
- ^ "Rupert Sheldrake". Heretics of Science. 19 July 1994. BBC.
- "Heretics of Science". episodecalendar.com.
- Rose, Steven (8 September 1994). "Heresy at stake". The Guardian. p. B11.
- Highfield, Roger; Fleming, Nic (6 September 2006). "Festival attacked over paranormal 'nonsense'". The Telegraph.
- Bignell, Paul (7 April 2013). "TED conference censorship row". The Independent. Independent Print Limited.
- "The debate about Rupert Sheldrake's talk". TED. 19 March 2013.
- Whitfield, J. (22 January 2004). "Telepathic charm seduces audience at paranormal debate". Nature. 427(6972): 277.
- Sheldrake, R., & Bohm, D. (1982). "Morphogenetic fields and the implicate order". ReVision. 5: 41.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Dürr, H. P. (Ed.) (1997). Rupert Sheldrake in der Diskussion. Scherz.
- Sokal, A. D., ed. (2000). The Sokal hoax: the sham that shook the academy. U of Nebraska Press.
- Wolpert, L.; Sheldrake, R. (8 July 2009). "What can DNA tell us? Place your bets now". New Scientist.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Leviton, Mark (February 2013). "Wrong Turn: Biologist Rupert Sheldrake On How Science Lost Its Way". The Sun Magazine. Vol. 446.
- Ebert, John David (Spring 1998). "From Cellular Aging to the Physics of Angels: A Conversation with Rupert Sheldrake". The Quest.
- Sharpe, Tom (20 September 2008). "Alleged assailant says he's not crazy". The Santa Fe New Mexican. Retrieved 25 March 2012.
- Sharpe, Tom (5 December 2008). "Judge orders mental-health help for man who insists his mind is being controlled". Santa Fe New Mexican.
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