Synopses & Reviews
NEW SCIENCE / BIOLOGY
"As far-reaching in its implications as Darwin's theory of evolution."
--Brain/Mind Bulletin
"An important scientific inquiry into the nature of biological and physical reality."
--New Scientist
"An immensely challenging and stimulating hypothesis, which proposes an unorthodox approach to evolution."
--Arthur Koestler, author of The Lotus and the Robotand The Ghost in the Machine
"Sheldrake is a Cambridge-trained research biologist whose modest proposals. . . have upset scientific orthodoxy"
--Utne Reader
Why do many phenonmena defy the explanations of conventional biology and physics? For instance, when laboratory rats in one place have learned how to navigate a new maze, why do rats elsewhere seem to learn it more easily? Rupert Sheldrake describes this process as morphic resonance: the past forms and behaviors of organisms, he argues, influence organisms in the present through direct connections across time and space. Calling into question many of our fundamental concepts about life and consciousness, Sheldrake reinterprets the regularities of nature as being more like habits than immutable laws.
The first edition of A New Science of Lifecreated a furor when it appeared, provoking the outrage of the old-guard scientific community and the approbation of the new. The British journal Naturecalled it "the best candidate for burning there has been for many years." A lively debate ensued, as researchers devised experiments testing Sheldrake's hypothesis, including some involving millions of people through the medium of television. These developments are recorded in this revised and expanded edition.
RUPERT SHELDRAKE, Ph.D., is a former Research Fellow of the Royal Society and was a scholar of Clare College, Cambridge, and a Frank Knox Fellow at Harvard University. His other books include The Presence of the Past, The Rebirth of Nature, and Seven ExperimentsThat Could Change the World. He lives in London with his wife and two sons.
Review
"An important scientific inquiry into the nature of biological and physical reality."
Review
The implications of this theory are staggering, from predicting the course of hurricanes to explaining deja vu. Sheldrake's thinking seems radical because he does not subscribe to orthodox scientific assumptions that the universe operates like a machine; instead, he sees it as much like a living organism. (Utne Reader, May/June 1999)
Review
"Sheldrake is a Cambridge-trained research biologist whose modest proposals. . . have upset scientific orthodoxy"
Review
"An immensely challenging and stimulating hypothesis, which proposes an unorthodox approach to evolution."
Synopsis
Why do many phenonmena defy the explanations of conventional biology and physics? For instance, when laboratory rats in one place have learned how to navigate a new maze, why do rats elsewhere seem to learn it more easily? Rupert Sheldrake describes this process as morphic resonance:the past forms and behaviors of organisms, he argues, influence organismsin the present through direct connections across time and space. Calling into question many of our fundamental concepts about life and consciousness, Sheldrake reinterprets the regularities of nature as being more like habits than immutable laws.
The first edition of A New Science of Lifecreated a furor when it appeared, provoking the outrage of the old-guard scientific community and the approbation of the new. The British journal Naturecalled it "the best candidate for burning there has been for many years." A lively debate ensued, as researchers devised experiments testing Sheldrake's hypothesis, including some involving millions of people through the medium of television. These developments are recorded in this revised and expanded edition.
Synopsis
Questioning many concepts of life and consciousness, the visionarybiologist describes his innovative theory of morphic resonance.