Rupert Sheldrake
Summary
Rupert Sheldrake is a British biologist who, beginning with his 1981 book A New Science of Life, proposed the morphic resonance hypothesis — that biological forms and behaviours are organised by morphic fields whose action is shaped by similar patterns from the past via a non-energetic, non-local resonance mechanism. Sheldrake's framework occupies a controversial position between mainstream biology (which has largely rejected it) and the wider community interested in anomalous phenomena (where it has substantial influence).
Sheldrake's research programme has also extensively investigated anomalous phenomena (telepathy in animals and humans, sense of being stared at) with empirical methods.
Life
Sheldrake was born in 1942 in England. He studied natural sciences at Cambridge (PhD in biochemistry, 1967) and won a Frank Knox Fellowship at Harvard before returning to Clare College, Cambridge as a Fellow and Director of Studies in Biochemistry. He worked at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, on tropical crop plant physiology.
In 1981 his first book attracted intense controversy — Natures editor John Maddox infamously described it as "a book for burning" in an editorial. Sheldrake left mainstream academic biology and has worked as an independent researcher since. He has held visiting and project-research positions at various institutions and was Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project (funded by Trinity College Cambridge) studying anomalous phenomena.
Key Contributions
Morphic resonance hypothesis
The core proposal of morphic resonance:
- Biological forms and behaviours are organised not only by genes and biochemical signalling but also by morphic fields — formative influences extending across space and time.
- The morphic field for a given form / behaviour is shaped by all previous instantiations of that form / behaviour — a kind of biological memory at the species level.
- This memory propagates through morphic resonance — a non-energetic, non-local similarity-based connection.
Specific predictions:
- Learning should become easier over time across populations: once one population of rats learns a maze, subsequent populations (even isolated ones) should learn it faster. Mixed empirical evidence; some claimed positive results, replication contested.
- Crystallisation patterns of novel chemical compounds should become more regular as the compound is repeatedly crystallised. Anecdotal supporting evidence from organic chemistry but no rigorous controlled study.
- Embryological forms should resist deviation from species-typical patterns by morphic-field stabilisation. Not directly testable with current methods.
Empirical anomalous-phenomena research
Sheldrake's later research programme has produced careful experimental studies of:
- Telepathy in animals: dogs anticipating their owners' return home, parrots showing telepathic responses. Statistical effects reported in some studies; replication varied.
- Telephone telepathy in humans: subjects appear to identify above chance who is about to call them. Statistical effects above chance in his studies; mainstream replication mixed.
- Sense of being stared at: subjects detect at above-chance rates when they are being looked at from behind. Meta-analyses across studies show small but statistically significant effect; mainstream interpretation contested.
The methodological rigour of Sheldrake's anomalous-phenomena research has generally been higher than typical popular parapsychology — randomised, blinded, with appropriate controls — even where mainstream commentators dispute the interpretation.
Banned TED talk and academic-freedom debate
A 2013 TEDx talk ("The Science Delusion") was removed from TED's main YouTube channel after objections from scientific advisors. The episode became a flashpoint in debate over academic freedom and the boundaries of scientific orthodoxy.
Reception
Mainstream biology and physics reject morphic resonance as lacking a coherent physical mechanism and as having insufficient empirical support. The harshest critics (Maddox, Dawkins) have argued the framework is pseudoscientific; the more moderate critics (Coyne, others) acknowledge Sheldrake's methodological care while rejecting the theoretical framework.
Within the alternative-science community Sheldrake is a major figure, treated by many as a serious scientist whose work has been unfairly marginalised. The truth is probably between extremes: Sheldrake's methodological work on anomalous phenomena is substantively careful (more careful than much mainstream parapsychology), while the morphic-resonance theoretical framework remains under-developed as a physical theory.
In the psionic framework, Sheldrake's morphic-resonance proposal is conceptually adjacent — both invoke field-like, non-local influences on biological form and behaviour. The framework treats morphic resonance as a candidate phenomenon to be explained by ψ-field coupling rather than as an alternative framework. Sheldrake's empirical work on telepathy and anomalous cognition is part of the framework's evidence base.
Bibliography
- Sheldrake, R. (1981, revised 2009). A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation. Icon Books.
- Sheldrake, R. (1988). The Presence of the Past. Times Books.
- Sheldrake, R. (1999). Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home. Crown.
- Sheldrake, R. (2003). The Sense of Being Stared At. Crown.
- Sheldrake, R. (2012). The Science Delusion. Coronet (UK) / Science Set Free (US).
See Also
External Links
- Wikipedia: Rupert Sheldrake
- sheldrake.org (personal site).
References
- Maddox, J. (1981). "A book for burning?" Nature 293: 245-246.
- Multiple peer-reviewed papers in Journal of Scientific Exploration, Journal of Parapsychology.
