Rupert Sheldrake: Encyclopedia - Rupert Sheldrake

Rupert Sheldrake

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake (born 1942) is a controversial British biologist and author. He developed a hypothesis of morphogenetic fields, and has produced related research and publications, on topics such as animal and plant development and behaviour, telepathy, perception and metaphysics. He has a popular public following, particularly because of his books aimed at the general reader, but he is shunned by many in the scientific establishment, who often consider his work as bordering on New Age thinking. Taking science "as a set of methods for finding out about anything at all that admits of systematic investigation" (John Searle), he is trying to extend science into realms it has neglected so far. Sheldrake continues to publish scientific papers in a variety of journals (though not generally mainstream ones).

Sheldrake held a fellowship and taught biology at Cambridge University (Clare College, from which he also studied natural sciences as an undergraduate and doctoral student), and was a Research Fellow of the Royal Society.

Rupert Sheldrake - New Science of Life controversy

In 1981, Sheldrake trailed his hypothesis of formative causation in an article in New Scientist magazine. The piece was provocatively headlined: "Scientific proof that science has got it all wrong". An editorial introduction admitted that, to modern science, an idea such as Sheldrake’s was "completely scatty", but justified its publication on the grounds that first, "Sheldrake is an excellent scientist; the proper, imaginative kind that in an earlier age discovered continents and mirrored the world in sonnets," and secondly, "the science in his ideas is good. … This does not mean that it is right but that it is testable".

A week later, in his well-known book A New Science of Life, he put forward the hypothesis of formative causation or morphogenetic fields (also called morphic fields), which proposes that phenomena — particularly biological ones — become more probable the more often they occur, and therefore that biological growth and behaviour are guided into patterns laid down by previous similar organisms. He suggests that this underlies many aspects of science, from evolution to laws of nature.

Over the next few months Sheldrake’s ideas were subjected to much discussion in journals and newspapers, and his book was reviewed in a variety of scientific and religious publications. Attitudes were predictably mixed and by no means all negative. Then, in September 1981, the scientific journal Nature carried an unsigned editorial (subsequently acknowledged to be by the journal’s senior editor, John Maddox) titled "A book for burning?" (Maddox, 1981). It reviewed and damned Rupert Sheldrake’s then recently-published book.

Though the editorial did not say the book ought to be burned (indeed, at one point it said the exact opposite), it gave this impression to casual readers, causing much subsequent controversy. Nature and Maddox have since published further highly critical reviews of Sheldrake's subsequent work.

Rupert Sheldrake - Later work

In more recent work Sheldrake has developed his ideas further and also conducted experiments (documented in subsequent books) on phenomena - particularly telepathy-related - which he believes could be explained by morphogenetic fields. Some of these experiments have apparently produced striking results, though many scientists remain unconvinced.

Sheldrake encourages such experiments to be carried out by ordinary people, and many have been, including some conducted by BBC TV's popular science programme Tomorrow's World, and investigations into the "sense of being stared at" involving thousands of schoolchildren in several countries. The public can also take part in experiments on Sheldrake's web site.

Rupert Sheldrake - Bibliography

• A New Science of Life (1981, second edition 1985)
• The Presence of the Past (1988)
• The Rebirth of Nature (1990)
• Seven Experiments That Could Change the World (1994)
• Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home (1999)
• The Sense Of Being Stared At (2003)

With Ralph Abraham and Terence McKenna:

• Trialogues at the Edge of the West (1992)
• The Evolutionary Mind (1988)
• Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness

With Matthew Fox (priest):

• Natural Grace (1996)
• The Physics of Angels (1996)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Rupert Sheldrake", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki