Rupert Sheldrake facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
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Sheldrake in 2008
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| Born | 28 June 1942 Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England
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| Nationality | British |
| Education | Clare College, Cambridge (MA) Harvard University University of Cambridge (PhD) |
| Occupation | Researcher, author, critic |
| Employer | The Perrott-Warrick Fund (2005–2010) |
| Spouse(s) | Jill Purce |
| Children | Cosmo Sheldrake Merlin Sheldrake |
Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born June 28, 1942) is a British author and researcher. He is known for his idea called morphic resonance. This idea suggests that nature has a kind of memory. It's not widely accepted by most scientists.
Sheldrake has worked as a biochemist at Cambridge University. He was also a scholar at Harvard and a researcher for the Royal Society. He even worked as a plant physiologist in India. Besides his main theory, Sheldrake has explored other interesting topics. These include telepathy (mind-to-mind communication) and the idea of knowing things before they happen (precognition).
Sheldrake's morphic resonance theory suggests that "memory is built into nature." It claims that living things and systems "inherit a shared memory" from everything that came before them. He also believes this idea explains "telepathy-like connections between organisms." This theory offers different ways to look at how living things develop, how traits are inherited, and how memory works.
Many scientists disagree with morphic resonance. They say there isn't enough proof for it. They also point out that it doesn't fit with what we know from genetics, embryology, and neuroscience. Some worry that too much attention to Sheldrake's ideas might make it harder for people to understand mainstream science.
Contents
Rupert Sheldrake's Early Life
Rupert Sheldrake was born on June 28, 1942, in Newark-on-Trent, England. His father was a pharmacist and loved nature. He encouraged Rupert's interest in animals and plants.
Rupert went to a boarding school. He once said that around age 14, he believed that science meant you had to be an atheist. He was the only boy at his school who didn't get confirmed in the church.
Before college, Sheldrake worked in a lab. He found it difficult because he had to use lab animals. This experience made a big impression on him. He then studied biology and biochemistry at Clare College, Cambridge. Later, he studied the history of science at Harvard University. He returned to Cambridge and earned his PhD. His research was about how plants grow and their hormones.
Rupert Sheldrake's Career
After getting his PhD, Sheldrake continued his research at Clare College. He studied auxins, which are plant hormones that help plants grow. He and a colleague developed a model to explain how these hormones move in plants.
Sheldrake later felt that biochemistry couldn't fully explain why living things have their basic shapes. He decided to stop this type of research.
From 1974 to 1978, Sheldrake worked in India. He was a plant physiologist at a research institute. He published papers on crop growth and co-wrote a book about the pigeonpea plant.
Writing A New Science of Life
Sheldrake left his job in India to write his first major book, A New Science of Life. He spent time at a spiritual center while writing it. The book was published in 1981. In it, he introduced his idea of morphic resonance.
He said that the idea came to him suddenly and was very exciting. Some of his friends at Cambridge were open to it. But scientists in the labs didn't like the idea of "telepathy-type connections" or "collective memories" in species. They mostly made fun of it.
After this book, Sheldrake continued to work as a consultant in India for a few more years.
Later Books and Projects
Sheldrake published his second book, The Presence of the Past, in 1988. In the 1990s and 2000s, he wrote more books. He also worked with other thinkers, including a mathematician and an ethnobotanist.
In 1993, Sheldrake was part of a documentary series called A Glorious Accident. This series explored questions about consciousness. It featured discussions among several well-known thinkers.
Since 2004, Sheldrake has been a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut. He also directed a project for psychical research, which studies unexplained human and animal abilities. He is currently a fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California and Schumacher College in England.
In recent years, Sheldrake has continued to write and debate. In 2017, he published a book with skeptic Michael Shermer. He has also debated the idea of consciousness outside the brain. Sheldrake has written two books about his spiritual practices.
Sheldrake's Main Ideas
Sheldrake's books have received mixed reviews. Some scientists have strongly criticized their scientific content. For example, Adam Rutherford, a geneticist, suggested Sheldrake's books should be "ignored." He said the research wasn't reviewed by other scientists, which is normal for scientific work.
A New Science of Life (1981)
In this book, Sheldrake introduced his morphic resonance hypothesis. He suggested that things become more likely to happen the more often they have happened before. He believed that this "memory" guides how living things grow and behave. For example, new behaviors could be passed down to future generations. This idea is similar to an older theory called Lamarckian inheritance.
Sheldrake also suggested that this idea explains many things in science. This includes evolution and even the laws of nature. He believes these laws are not fixed but are changing habits that have evolved since the Big Bang.
Some early reviews of the book were positive. John Davy wrote that the ideas were "fascinating and far-reaching." He said they could "turn upside down a lot of orthodox science." However, many critics reject morphic resonance. They call it pseudoscience or "magical thinking." They say there's no proof and it doesn't fit with known scientific theories. They also say the idea is too vague to be tested.
The Presence of the Past (1988)
In this book, Sheldrake further explained his morphic resonance idea. He also presented evidence that he believed supported it. A review in New Scientist was positive at the time. However, years later, New Scientist said that attitudes had "hardened." They noted that Sheldrake was now seen as being on the "wilder shores of science."
David E. H. Jones criticized the book. He called the idea "magical thinking" and pseudoscience. He said morphic resonance was "so vast and formless" that it could explain anything. He argued that without strong experimental proof, the theory falls apart.
The Rebirth of Nature (1991)
This book explored ideas about New Age consciousness. Sheldrake suggested that nature is "alive." He believed that "spontaneity and creativity have re-emerged throughout the natural world." He also thought that older, more spiritual ways of thinking could no longer be ignored.
James Lovelock reviewed the book in Nature. He said that Sheldrake's theory makes predictions that can be tested. He noted that nothing had yet been found to change mainstream science. Lovelock still felt the book was not "dangerous," even if it was "nonsense."
Seven Experiments That Could Change the World (1994)
In 1994, Sheldrake suggested Seven Experiments That Could Change the World. He wanted everyday people to do research. He argued that his types of experiments could be done without much money.
Mark Edwards, a music critic, reviewed the book positively. He said Sheldrake "challenges the complacent certainty of scientists." He added that Sheldrake's ideas might sound "ridiculous" if you only think in traditional scientific ways.
David Sharp, writing in The Lancet, warned about the risk of only publishing positive results. He said that if some of Sheldrake's ideas were proven, the scientific community would have to rethink things. He encouraged medical professionals to read Sheldrake's book and even try an experiment. But he doubted that "enthusiastic amateurs" could convince skeptics.
Dogs That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home (1999)
This book looked at the idea of telepathy between humans and animals. Sheldrake focused on dogs. He suggested that this interspecies telepathy is real. He believed that morphic fields are responsible for it.
The book has three parts. It covers telepathy, how animals find their way, and animal precognition (like sensing earthquakes). Sheldrake studied over 1,000 stories of dogs and cats. These pets seemed to know when their owners were coming home. They would wait at a door or window, sometimes for a long time.
He did many experiments with a dog named Jaytee. The dog was filmed while its owner was away. In 100 tests, Jaytee spent much more time at the window when its owner was on the way home. Sheldrake saw this as very important statistically. He did more tests where the owner came home at random times in different cars. This was to rule out the dog reacting to familiar sounds. Sheldrake also did similar tests with another dog, Kane, with similar positive results.
Before the book came out, Sheldrake invited other researchers to study Jaytee. They concluded that their evidence did not support telepathy. They suggested other reasons for the dog's behavior. For example, a dog might visit the window more often the longer its owner is away. Sheldrake argued that his data did not show this. He said Jaytee went to the window sooner for short absences and later for long ones.
The Sense of Being Stared At (2003)
Sheldrake's book The Sense of Being Stared At explores telepathy and precognition. It also looks at the "psychic staring effect." He described an experiment where people wore blindfolds. They had to guess if someone was staring at them. Sheldrake reported that people had a weak sense of being stared at. He linked these results to morphic resonance.
However, other researchers could not find proof that people could tell if they were being stared at. Some said there were problems with Sheldrake's experiment design. Michael Shermer worried about confirmation bias in the tests. He concluded that Sheldrake's claim could not be proven wrong.
The Science Delusion (2012)
This book, also called Science Set Free, summarizes much of Sheldrake's earlier work. It criticizes the idea that science already understands everything about reality. Sheldrake argues that this belief has turned science into a set of fixed ideas. He believes it stops scientists from exploring new things.
Sheldrake questions ideas like the conservation of energy. He suggests that things like perpetual motion should be studied. He also supports alternative medicine and psychic phenomena. He believes that a "scientific priesthood" prevents these from being accepted. He argues that minds are not just in brains. He also suggests that DNA alone cannot explain inheritance. He believes morphic resonance helps explain how forms and behaviors are passed down.
Reviews for this book were mixed. Some welcomed it as a new way to think about the mind and body. Others called it "disturbingly eccentric." They said it mixed scientific facts with strange ideas.
How Morphic Resonance Started
Sheldrake says that a book called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) by Thomas Kuhn influenced him. This book made him see that current scientific ideas are just one way of thinking. He realized that scientific ideas can change over time.
Sheldrake says he first thought of morphic resonance in Cambridge. This was before he traveled to India. He credits two things for his idea. One was his study of holistic biology. The other was a book by French philosopher Henri Bergson called Matter and Memory. Sheldrake took Bergson's idea that memories are not just in the brain. He expanded it to morphic resonance, where memories are not only non-physical but also influenced by the shared memories of similar living things.
His colleagues in Cambridge didn't like the idea. But in India, he found the opposite. His Indian colleagues told him that ancient rishis (wise people) knew about these ideas thousands of years ago. Sheldrake sees morphic resonance as a mix of Western and Eastern ways of thinking.
Sheldrake has also noted similarities between morphic resonance and Carl Jung's collective unconscious. Both ideas involve shared memories and behaviors that repeat. However, Jung thought these were passed down physically. Sheldrake believes morphic resonance explains them.
Rupert Sheldrake's Family
Rupert Sheldrake is married to Jill Purce, who is a therapist and author. They have two sons. One son, Merlin Sheldrake, is a biologist who studies fungi. Their other son, Cosmo Sheldrake, is a musician.
Sheldrake is a practicing Anglican (a type of Christian). He has also studied Sufism (a spiritual practice) while in India. He says he was "drawn back to a Christian path" during his time there.
Images for kids
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Sheldrake in 2008
See also
- Fritjof Capra
- Groupthink
- Hundredth monkey effect
- Noosphere
- Philosophy of science
- Synchronicity
- Lyall Watson
- Water memory
