Published: 26 January, 2012
by LEWIS WOLPERT

The title of Rupert Sheldrake’s new book is very provocative in referring to science as a delusion, since science is the best way to understand how the world functions, and has been amazingly successful.

This is a weird critique of current science, which Sheldrake claims is trapped in the dogma of materialism.

He does not believe that the universe is an inanimate machine and that everything is ultimately based on physics and its fundamental particles.

He has some discussion about the history of science and its relationship with religion, and thinks that materialism rose with the rise of atheism, but there is no evidence of religion having any significant impact on science.

He is sympathetic to vitalism and takes seriously reports that people can live for long periods without eating.

He is right that cells with all their interacting molecules inside them cannot at present have their behaviour reliably predicted and so we cannot predict how an embryo will develop.

It will take time to establish this.

But he does not believe that such understanding is relevant, as his basic idea, which is at the core of this book, is that there is a process he calls morphic resonance – where similar patterns of activity resonate with subsequent patterns.

All self-organising systems, which he claims include atoms, cells, animals and plants, draw upon a collective memory and also contribute to it.

A growing crystal thus follows the same process as previous similar crystals.

In biology, development in the embryo of structures like hands are patterned by the development of previous hands, not genes.

He is very critical about what genes are supposed to do, and argues that they cannot provide a programme for the formation of a hand, as all the cells in the arm  have the same genes and proteins for which they code and so cannot determine the shape of the limb.

But he appears not to understand the basic mechanism by which the embryo develops.

Cells can signal to each other and this results in different genes being turned on at different places and at different times.

The spatial distribution of some proteins varies and this can cause changes in shape by determining where cells multiply, and which bones will develop.

There are also mutations in genes that can cause the antenna of the fly to develop as a leg, and it can be understood, as the positional identity of the cells in these two structures are the same but they interpret their response differently because of the key gene– it has nothing to do with morphic resonance.

That identical twins are so similar is due to them having the same genes, but if morphic resonance existed non-identical twins would also be very similar.  

Sheldrake also claims that memories are based on morphic resonance and are not located in the nerve cells in the brain, even though brain damage can lead to memory loss.

He rightly points out that consciousness has not yet been ex­plained by mater­ialist processes like nerve activity in the brain.

Mor­phic reson­ance in relation to be­ha­viour is, he claims, supported by evid­ence that if rats learn a new trick, then rats all over the world are able to learn it quicker. The increase in IQ among people in the US is, he believes, evidence for this.

This mode of thinking leads to his claim that people know when there is someone looking at them from behind, that when the phone rings we often know who is calling and that dogs know when their master is coming home.

It is thus no surprise that he bel­ieves in psychic phenom­ena like telepathy.

He also argues that the understanding of the genetic basis of diseases is very poor in spite of the human genome having been sequenced.

Many genes linked to illness have been identified but the details of their effects still has to be worked out.

But a nice example where the effect is understood is sickle cell anaemia, where a mutation in the gene for haemoglobin causes the protein to aggregate, and so deforms the red cells into a sickle shape, which makes blood flow difficult. He is very committed to the placebo effect and to alternative medicine.

For those who care, there are questions about the readers’ beliefs in the topics discussed at the end of each chapter.

But while he presents what he calls scientific evidence for his ideas, it is totally unpersuasive.

His ideas are in conflict with basic scientific knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology.

An interesting scientific problem is why someone who is so know­ledgeable, writes so well, and is highly intelligent, has such mystical beliefs about science and where his own resonance came from.

• Lewis Wolpert is Emeritus Professor of Biology as applied to Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and developmental biology at University College London

• The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry. By Rupert Sheldrake.Coronet 19.99

• Rupert Sheldrake, who lives in Hampstead, will give a talk at the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn, on Sunday at 11am