Rupert Sheldrake
English biologist and parapsychology researcher (b. 1942), proponent of 'morphic resonance'.
1981 CE · 52.21, 0.12 · status: disputed
The account
A former Cambridge biochemist and plant physiologist at ICRISAT in India, Sheldrake proposed in 'A New Science of Life' (1981) that natural systems inherit a collective memory from previous ones. He has also studied telepathy, the 'sense of being stared at' and dogs that seem to anticipate their owners' return. A 2013 TEDx talk of his was moved to the TED blog with a caution, prompting censorship complaints.
The sceptical view
Nature's editor called his first book 'an exercise in pseudo-science'; critics cite lack of evidence and conflicts with genetics and neuroscience, and Richard Wiseman's team found no telepathy in the dog tests.
Connections in the atlas
- Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home
- Weinstein's 'Distributed Idea Suppression Complex'
- A New Science of Life
- Dean Radin