4 ms·

> Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is an English author and parapsychology researcher. He proposed the concept of morphic resonance,[2][3] a conjectu

> Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is an English author and parapsychology researcher. He proposed the concept of morphic resonance,[2][3] a conjecture that lacks mainstream acceptance and has been widely criticized as pseudoscience.

ted_bunny 3y ago
He's a trained scientist. His arguments are conjectural but sound. He's far from a kook.
- afarviral 3y ago
  Being a kook and holding degrees in science are not mutually exclusive. His theories are intriguing nonsense in the sense that they have little to no evidence to support them. Their deeply conjectural nature is what defines them as kooky.
  - titzer 3y ago
    I've seen him give a talk. He continues to persist with pseudo-scientific theories that posit forces for which there are no evidence that purport to explain phenomenon that we have completely adequate scientific explanations for. His theories routinely fail Occam's razor, his experimental design is garbage, and he is never skeptical of his own conclusions. He's a kook.
    - afarviral 3y ago
      > purport to explain phenomenon that we have completely adequate scientific explanations for Exactly! I think he is just lining his pockets on this stuff as all the many other pseudoscience and snake oil salesman before him.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  He's a trained biochemist. Doesn't make him an expert on consciousness, psychology, cosmology, or any of the other things his crazy theories are about. I've engaged with his ideas in depth, mostly because I find crackpot science interesting even if I don't buy it. There's nothing there. Morphic resonance is a non-theory. It's so vague as to easily be morphed to explain any counterargument, it's not falsifiable and it's not supported by any evidence other than the evidence he wilfully misinterprets as supporting his theory. Sheldrake is very intelligent. But something happened to him in the late 60s that caused him to abandon his biochem research and go into increasingly kooky stuff.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
    If it was in the late '60s and he got into parapsychology and wondering if the sun is conscious, that's a very big hint of what "happened" to him. That generation is probably still pissing off all the drugs it took to roll back that high and beautiful wave [1]. This is not just a glib comment btw. I have some history with that kind of thing. When I was just small I discovered my mother's library, that happened to be full of New Age books that were popular with her and her friends as she was growing up, I guess: yoga, reiki, orientalism, astrology, Arthur Koestler, Wilhelm Reich, Aldus Huxley and Carlos Castaneda... I am a voracious reader, and I read them voraciously. I had the luxury of reading them in an age that was too young for the psychedelic drugs praised by some of them (Huxley and Castaneda, mainly, who were also the best writers of the bunch) and so managed to read them critically, I guess, and recognise their deep flaws [2]. I can imagine how hard it would have been to think critically if I had read those books under the influence of the kind of drugs people took in the '60s. And later. Growing up I had a friend who would regularly smoke hash and sit down and read the bible. He was at least half mad. A dear friend, but half mad. Drugs aren't good for criticial thinking. I think our man, Sheldrake, he fried his brain on drugs and that's how he can now think that the sun might be conscious, and that people can tell when someone's staring at them. I have another friend who smokes a lot of hash and is at least half mad and he's a big fan of Sheldrake. This friend is convinced that people can hear his thoughts. I think he believes he's telepathic and he is inadvertently projecting his thoughts into peoples' heads. Sometimes I think of all the people I know who go about their lives with their heads full of beliefs that never need touch reality, and it weirds me out a bit. Think of how many people believe in gods, or in aliens, or in reincarnation. I cross paths with those people everyday, we occupy the same physical space, but they live in a different world that I can't see or feel. That a guy trained in biochemistry (and who probably was a bit too friendly with chemistry for his own good) has made a whole world model out of nothing more than his imagination is not a big surprise. ________________ [1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1074-strange-memories-on-this-nervous-night-in-las-vegas-five https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1074-strange-memories-on-th... [2] Take astrology, for instance. My mother had a 13-tome opus, with one tome on each sign, plus one for the general stuff. I read my own sign's tome first and I was inspired: everything in there described me so perfectly! Then I read the tome for another sign; and that, too, described me perfectly. So did the next, and the next. Soon I realised that the "perfect descriptions" of my personality were doing nothing more than flattering me, for having aspects to my personality that basically everyone has. They were just trying to get me hooked by telling me how cool I really am, because I'm an X sign.
- VHRanger 3y ago
  Ah yes the "smart in one thing - smart in all the other things" fallacy
- titzer 3y ago
  Just what exactly is sound about positing "magic fields" that have shoddy experimental evidence[1], predict nothing (or if they do, predict obvious things which we have completely adequate explanations for), and are totally unfalsifiable? [1] Like his kooky "dogs know when owners are coming home" experiment (https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/dogs-that-know-when-their-owners-are-coming-home https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/dogs-tha...). Like somehow dogs getting increasingly agitated the longer their owners are away is fucking mysterious to him. Also, apparently dogs cannot hear or smell, tell time, or remember patterns of behavior...at all. Such a kook.
  - fractallyte 3y ago
    I witnessed this phenomenon myself, and I'm decidedly not a kook. I don't have a satisfactory explanation, despite some rather interesting contributions from HN readers. My comment in this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39861066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39861066 My original observation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295560

ted_bunny 3y ago

He's a trained scientist. His arguments are conjectural but sound. He's far from a kook.

afarviral 3y ago
Being a kook and holding degrees in science are not mutually exclusive. His theories are intriguing nonsense in the sense that they have little to no evidence to support them. Their deeply conjectural nature is what defines them as kooky.
- titzer 3y ago
  I've seen him give a talk. He continues to persist with pseudo-scientific theories that posit forces for which there are no evidence that purport to explain phenomenon that we have completely adequate scientific explanations for. His theories routinely fail Occam's razor, his experimental design is garbage, and he is never skeptical of his own conclusions. He's a kook.
  - afarviral 3y ago
    > purport to explain phenomenon that we have completely adequate scientific explanations for Exactly! I think he is just lining his pockets on this stuff as all the many other pseudoscience and snake oil salesman before him.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
He's a trained biochemist. Doesn't make him an expert on consciousness, psychology, cosmology, or any of the other things his crazy theories are about. I've engaged with his ideas in depth, mostly because I find crackpot science interesting even if I don't buy it. There's nothing there. Morphic resonance is a non-theory. It's so vague as to easily be morphed to explain any counterargument, it's not falsifiable and it's not supported by any evidence other than the evidence he wilfully misinterprets as supporting his theory. Sheldrake is very intelligent. But something happened to him in the late 60s that caused him to abandon his biochem research and go into increasingly kooky stuff.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
  If it was in the late '60s and he got into parapsychology and wondering if the sun is conscious, that's a very big hint of what "happened" to him. That generation is probably still pissing off all the drugs it took to roll back that high and beautiful wave [1]. This is not just a glib comment btw. I have some history with that kind of thing. When I was just small I discovered my mother's library, that happened to be full of New Age books that were popular with her and her friends as she was growing up, I guess: yoga, reiki, orientalism, astrology, Arthur Koestler, Wilhelm Reich, Aldus Huxley and Carlos Castaneda... I am a voracious reader, and I read them voraciously. I had the luxury of reading them in an age that was too young for the psychedelic drugs praised by some of them (Huxley and Castaneda, mainly, who were also the best writers of the bunch) and so managed to read them critically, I guess, and recognise their deep flaws [2]. I can imagine how hard it would have been to think critically if I had read those books under the influence of the kind of drugs people took in the '60s. And later. Growing up I had a friend who would regularly smoke hash and sit down and read the bible. He was at least half mad. A dear friend, but half mad. Drugs aren't good for criticial thinking. I think our man, Sheldrake, he fried his brain on drugs and that's how he can now think that the sun might be conscious, and that people can tell when someone's staring at them. I have another friend who smokes a lot of hash and is at least half mad and he's a big fan of Sheldrake. This friend is convinced that people can hear his thoughts. I think he believes he's telepathic and he is inadvertently projecting his thoughts into peoples' heads. Sometimes I think of all the people I know who go about their lives with their heads full of beliefs that never need touch reality, and it weirds me out a bit. Think of how many people believe in gods, or in aliens, or in reincarnation. I cross paths with those people everyday, we occupy the same physical space, but they live in a different world that I can't see or feel. That a guy trained in biochemistry (and who probably was a bit too friendly with chemistry for his own good) has made a whole world model out of nothing more than his imagination is not a big surprise. ________________ [1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1074-strange-memories-on-this-nervous-night-in-las-vegas-five https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1074-strange-memories-on-th... [2] Take astrology, for instance. My mother had a 13-tome opus, with one tome on each sign, plus one for the general stuff. I read my own sign's tome first and I was inspired: everything in there described me so perfectly! Then I read the tome for another sign; and that, too, described me perfectly. So did the next, and the next. Soon I realised that the "perfect descriptions" of my personality were doing nothing more than flattering me, for having aspects to my personality that basically everyone has. They were just trying to get me hooked by telling me how cool I really am, because I'm an X sign.
VHRanger 3y ago
Ah yes the "smart in one thing - smart in all the other things" fallacy
titzer 3y ago
Just what exactly is sound about positing "magic fields" that have shoddy experimental evidence[1], predict nothing (or if they do, predict obvious things which we have completely adequate explanations for), and are totally unfalsifiable? [1] Like his kooky "dogs know when owners are coming home" experiment (https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/dogs-that-know-when-their-owners-are-coming-home https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/dogs-tha...). Like somehow dogs getting increasingly agitated the longer their owners are away is fucking mysterious to him. Also, apparently dogs cannot hear or smell, tell time, or remember patterns of behavior...at all. Such a kook.
- fractallyte 3y ago
  I witnessed this phenomenon myself, and I'm decidedly not a kook. I don't have a satisfactory explanation, despite some rather interesting contributions from HN readers. My comment in this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39861066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39861066 My original observation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33295560