Smoke and Mirrors - Rupert Sheldrake interviewed by Quest

Are you sitting comfortably?

This article refers to an essay and interview written by John David Ebert for Quest Magazine. "From Cellular Aging to the Physics of Angels: A Conversation with Rupert Sheldrake" appears on Sheldrake's own website. You can find it by clicking on this link.

Sheldrake's theories on Reincarnation; that the mind is simply picking up echoes of memories left behind, are very much in line with my own.

Let me clarify that. His theories are very much in line with theories I developed in 1983. When I was twelve years old and didn't know any better.

My theory, which I called elementalism worked on these lines:

1: "Since the Physical ingredients of our bodies can be passed from one creature to another, (Grass becomes a cow, cow becomes milk, milk becomes me) then surely the energy that makes life must be passed in the same way."

2: "Since matter and energy are passed through organisms, and generally move up a class every time, (I equated a rise up the food chain as with advancement) it could be considered that they are being refined."

3: "In the same way that matter and energy are being refined, it stands to reason that the energy in the brain, the thoughts, the soul. Are the ultimate expression of this refinement process."

4: "Therefore, raw energy that has been turned into a thought, can be assumed to be successful. The more thoughts a person has, the more creative they are, the more energy they refine. Energy that is refined endures forever and becomes part of the great blanket of energy that encompasses the universe. Unrefined energy disperses back into base forms and begins the process all over again."

5: "A person whose consciousness is so refined, who is so enlightened and creative that he steps above the physical, is likely to consist of so much refined energy that his consciousness, his 'I am' sense, survives death and joins the great collective."

6: "Sometimes people can tune into these non-dispersed energies and interpret them as past lives. This is why people who believe in reincarnation often claim to have been great men, such as Napoleon or such like. The more accomplished the man, the more likely that his energy would avoid being dissipated after death."

7: "Since there is no scientific evidence for this invisible and undetectable energy, it has to be an invisible energy that doesn't follow the rules of physics as we know them, but something that everyone, at least on some level, is capable of tuning in to. How else can we explain the idea of ghosts?"

So, that's what I thought when I was twelve. I soon grew out of the ideas, but they made sense at the time. Gradually, as I learned more about science and spent longer chatting after hours with my physics teacher, (Yes, I didn't have many friends in school!) I realised there were some pretty important papers written by people such as Einstein and Newton which blew my theories clean out of the water. But it didn't stop me being an elementalist right up until the time I left the sixth form.

That's why I don't have much patience for Sheldrake. He's not telling me anything I couldn't figure out for myself. In fact. He's not telling me anything that I hadn't already made up, lived with, and abandoned a long time ago. Ultimately, the main thing wrong with my elementalism theory was that it was a load of bollocks.

Charladrake.

The thing that most annoys me about all purveyors of Pseudoscience is that they simply have no moral foundation. They are liars who will twist and manipulate truth to suit their own ends. On one hand they will happily discredit science and scientists to show that their 'way' is better. On the other hand, they will then attempt to use science, or pin their theories alongside valid scientific work to add credibility to their arguments. The text I received last week (The article from Sheldrake's website, emailed to me by a friend) was a typical case that I have no fear of holding up to scrutiny.

If you should refute the arguments of these charlatans, they will fight back in a most predictable way. Offer them facts against them and they accuse you of being a soulless number-cruncher. Challenge them to provide facts to substantiate their claims and they claim that there's no need to prove their case because it can't be DISproven.

This is the number one common sense-dodging tactic employed by anyone who makes a living from telling lies: refusing to accept that burden of proof rests with themselves.

This is important, because the burden of proof is a vital step that must be made before a theory can be taken seriously. Without bothering to prove a claim, a theorist is of no more use to society than an imaginative twelve year old. Too often, new age charlatans are dishing out "facts" about the workings of the universe and its inhabitants without making the slightest attempt to test their theories outside their own imagination.

But what is a fact? You could argue that, as a sceptic, I must be aware that "scientific facts" are simply today's theories. And that many of them (particularly in science) will be torn to shreds by better ideas that make the rulebook we are using today seem useless. This is true. A "scientific fact" is little more than a common agreement. According to Michael Shermer in his book "Why people believe weird things" a fact is "A conclusion confirmed to such an extent that it would be reasonable to offer provisional agreement"(Page 19).

It is the duty of philosophers, scientists, physicians, theorists and dreamers to challenge these beliefs and add to the pool of knowledge. Sooner or later, somebody comes up with a testable hypothesis which leads eventually to a well supported theory that challenges even the most basic previous scientific assumption. When that happens you've got the beginnings of a paradigm shift.

BUT. When ever this happens, the burden of proof lies with the theorist who introduces the new theory. They have to be able to demonstrate with repeatable results that their theory holds true. Then, other theorists must be able to challenge or add to the new way of thinking with workable results. The mind-set should be something along the lines of:"If A is true and B is true, then if I look at C, I should see this." and should be followed up with:"If that is true, then if I look at D, I should see this." This is generally regarded as the beginnings of acceptance. The ability to accurately predict unknowns based on the application of the new theory.

Darwin did it. (Don't worry. I'm not going to hammer on about creationism.) Much as the Church hated what he had to say, his hypotheses proved right time and time again, his results were verifiable. They were repeatable and they were predictable. So much so that other scientists working in the same field are were able to accurately predict results based on his work. Over the years his theories have been added to by other hypotheses which have met the burden of proof. And we can see the evidence for ourselves. Anybody who's ever had their appendix out and wondered what it's there for can find the answer in evolutionary reasoning. Or perhaps we've noticed the vestigial claws of animals and realised that it's what's left of a thumb. (Although Sheldrake would rather we believed that this was the result of modern animals tuning in to the memories of primitive creatures and trying to copy them out of habit.) Darwinism has met the burden of proof and is now universally acceptable as more than just a theory. It is a "scientific fact". Anyone who wishes to challenge Darwinism and its subsequent paradigms must meet the same burden of proof that the evolutionists met.

So. A "fact" as we understand it, is something to which, given the evidence, it would be wise to offer temporary agreement to. Nothing more. This is about as good as it gets for facts. And it's the principle reason why fundamentalist worship has had its day. The principle of "Believe this because It Is Written" has no place in the modern world. Thinking people challenge what they are told. Reasoning people question and test their surroundings. Like Dorothy in Oz, we have started paying more attention to the man behind the curtain and implausible or primitive explanations; doctrinal "facts" about the workings of the universe (which can't hold up to scrutiny) simply don't cut it. Scientists love to pick holes in each others work. It's the best self-regulating system there is. Right wing Christians, New age writers, mystics, charlatans and all those who use the veneer of scientific language to cover their fantasies depend on the unquestioning acceptance of those who nod.

This is not, however, an all out attack on metaphysics. I recognise that such work is a study of philosophy, and not one that claims its conclusions are scientific. The trouble is that so many hawkers of fuzzy logic attempt to validate their work by claiming that their study is metaphysical, that the word has become an apology rather than a philosophy. I'll be the first to admit that I don't have much scientific knowledge. I'm only educated to HND level. My IQ is above average, but that doesn't make me any cleverer than the next man. That said, I can still pick holes in the bullshit that is being served up to the nodding masses by supposedly knowledgeable people with PHDs.

Can't anybody but me understand how wrong it is that people who make ridiculous claims about things and dress them up as science have so obviously made up their stories? How their clumsy stories have been put together in such a way that even the basic building blocks of their theories are wrong? Am I the only person who thinks that this sort of mumbo jumbo should not only be challenged, but physically resisted? This isn't sports day at a special school. We don't have to be nice to these people and make it easier for them. We don't have to give them another go just because they find it difficult.

Real people are getting damaged by this smoke and mirrors trickery. Children with epilepsy are being told they are plagued by demons. Surviving widows feel unable to re-marry because they are told their dead husbands are still watching them. Victims of schizophrenia are living nightmare existences because people like Sheldrake tell them that their brains are receivers for the voices They are hearing. While genuine scientists who are unlucky enough to have spent their lives studying biology are hounded out of town and firebombed for playing God.

Anyway - John David Ebert's article:

Attacking science

"Indeed, with the publication of the works of Darwin, Marx, Freud, and Skinner during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, precisely what Kant had feared came into cultural manifestation with the unfolding of these various materialisms. T. S. Eliot's poems "The Waste Land" and "The Hollow Men" have become emblematic of the spiritual climate of the twentieth century, particularly since every one of the classical domains of the humanities has been colonized by the expanding empire of mechanistic science"

Let's just have a look at that language again. "Colonized by the expanding empire of mechanistic science"? Is this man talking about the Nazis? This sort of analogy is a Trojan horse of reasoning, designed to be read and digested without being pondered. It is a small flask of poison which has been dropped into the well. It programs the though processes of the reader to enable him or her to accept the logic of the argument later on: Science is evil. It spreads like an empire. They are coming to take your songs away.

"it would seem that science is very much in need of a blast of wind from the pneumatic spirit to set its stagnant waters in motion once again"

Again, an assertion is being laid down here that you are not expected to challenge: Science is dead and buried. It is stagnant. Anyone who follows it must be of like mind

"The elementary ideas of the human imagination---gods, spirits, the category of the holy---have been ubiquitous throughout the development of human evolution, and there is no reason to think that the death of orthodox Christianity at the hands of an increasingly arrogant mechanistic science means that these ideas are merely vestigial relics from man's "superstitious" past. On the contrary, as Carl Jung often pointed out, modern man's lack of contact with these ideas has left him vulnerable to all sorts of political, social, and economic hysterias which have plagued the course of the twentieth century with one catastrophe after another."

Once more, with feeling. Just look at the language being used here: "An increasingly arrogant mechanistic science" which is followed closely by the assertion that science and the following of it, contributes to "all sorts of political social and economic hysterias". Way to solve the world's problems! Do away with science. Let everybody claim that what ever half baked theory they come up with is true, make religion mandatory, and then everyone in the world will avoid the hysterias "that have plagued the course of the twentieth century".

All this finger pointing that Ebert is doing might make you think that he doesn't have much time for science. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. You only have to look at the way he uses science and scientific language to add weight to his arguments to know that he finds a little scientific knowledge very useful indeed.

Using Science as Validation.

"Theology has never been the province of science, the primary aim of which is a coniunctio of the categories of the mind with the impressions of the senses. Metaphysics, however, confined as it is by the rigid nexus of classical logic, has always looked askance at the earthly plane as a place for confirmation of the validity of its "truths.""

There you have it. A direct claim. A distinction that this is not mere Theology. Sheldrake's work, being metaphysics, is confined in a rigid nexus of classical logic. What ever that means.

What it should mean, of course, is that Sheldrake's theories can be at least investigated using logical means. This should make it simple to prove his theories, and it should make his work easy to demonstrate. If his work has been 'rigidly confined' by logic, then we should not be able to use logic against him. It would be like using geometry against an architect.

"In the 1990's, the "organicists" first proposed the idea of morphogenetic fields as a kind of golden mean between the extremes of mechanism and vitalism. The models proposed by these thinkers, however, tended towards Platonism, with their vision of morphogenetic fields as transcendent "laws" of organization. But Sheldrake's innovation was to see these fields as themselves evolving along with the forms which they produce."

Well, that's good. That establishes Sheldrake's credentials nicely. We can see that the Organicists bridge the gap between the modern day soulless Mechanists and the superstitious, god-obsessed Vitalists. The reader might be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief that this third way now exists. The fact that Mechanism has met the burden of proof (Body tissue is a collection of cells and water that responds to electricity on an automatic level, and does not "think" for itself) is something we are not encouraged to consider.

Experiments to prove Mechanism can be repeated for you until your eyes bleed. And they can be repeated again the next day. The claim of the Vitalist was that bodies were alive because they had a soul. Getting sick was a result of soul imbalance. Fortunately in the 19^th century, the invention of the microscope led to an understanding of germs. Soon after that, anatomists were able to prove that organs had a role to play in the body. And soon after that, experiments with electricity proved that frog's legs could be animated after death. As long as a hundred years ago, these seventeenth century ideas were put to rest by incontrovertible evidence.

Take the vitalist theory of evolution. Jean Baptiste de Lamark;s "theory of inheritance and acquired characteristics" For its day, (round about 1780) it was remarkable. The idea that animals adapted to their environments and passed on their adaptations to their children was probably the first Godless explanation for evolutionary change and predated Darwin's theory by about eighty years. But, radical as it was, the theory couldn't stand up to testing. Giraffes didn't simply grow long necks in one generation and pass them on to their children, just as a body builder couldn't work out and expect a muscular baby. It was a forward thinking theory, but it simply didn't work.

So now that we collectively understand more than the Vitalists, why on earth do we need a third way? Thousands of years ago, the Vikings used to think that lightning was controlled by Thor. Some time later, Ben Franklin allegedly took his kite out and gave us the basic theory of how lightning works. Would it make sense then, to propose a third way? That along with our electricity bills, we should also sacrifice a pig to Thor? And now the weather. Brought to you this hour by Zeuss.

By the way. The term "Mechanist" soon fell out of disuse. Many of those who studied it were more interested in the Physical world than the individual mechanisms within them. In a very short time, the term was replaced by "Physicist".

The quote above is classic pseudo-scientific language. It is virtually impossible to follow so it must be true. Note the lack of explanation for the theories of Vitalism or Mechanism. Making the 'science' bit unintelligible is the same as giving mass in Latin. It implies that the only reason we could have for disagreeing with the author is simply not having the intelligence to cope with his argument. Nobody who reads Quest is expected to understand any of this. Why would somebody who understands science bother to do so?

And now let's look at Sheldrake's big bomb: "morphogenetic fields".

Wow. Morph - Phono - Genetic. That's brilliant. That's Warpmattertastic. In fact, it's Fractalamplilogically amazing. What a simply Radiosynaptictudionally wonderful word. How can it not be mind bogglingly brilliant science with a name like that? Okay. Bring it on and let's see.

"And indeed for Sheldrake, the "laws" of the universe may not in fact be laws at all, but rather deeply ingrained habits of action which have been built up over the many eons in which the universe has spun itself out.

"Like the ancient riverbeds on the surface of Mars left behind by the pressures of flowing water over billions of years, so too, the "laws" of the universe may be thought of as runnels engraved in the texture of space-time by endless, unchanging repetition. And the longer particular patterns persist, the greater their tendency to resist change."

Very convenient. Total Bollocks, but convenient. "Habit" implies intelligence. Not just that, but an intelligence that is stuck in its ways like an old man. This can be disproved by even the most simple logic. Even Newton's first law - the very corner stone of physics- blows this one wide open with simple common sense.

Waterfalls do not exist because the individual droplets of water are in the habit of falling down the same cliff. Objects in motion follow the path of least resistance, and making a change would require physical effort. When damming water, an engineer must account for the force of the water (Its mass, its velocity, its potential energy, and seasonal factors.) to determine how strong the dam needs to be. At no point do the equations require that the age of the river be taken into account.

When extracting rock from a quarry, an engineer must work out how much explosive force is required by calculating the weight of the rock he wants to shift. At no point does he have to work out how long the rock has been there.

Chance has no memory. If I roll a dice six times, and by amazing coincidence get a six every time, the seventh roll is no more or less likely to be a six. Each event is its own event. The dice will not give me a six just because it has learned the habit.

"Sheldrake terms this habitual tendency of nature "morphic
resonance," whereby present forms are shaped through the influence of past
forms. Morphic resonance is transmitted by means of "morphogenetic fields,"
which are analogous to electromagnetic fields in that they transmit information,
but differ in that they do so without using energy, and are therefore not
diminished by transmission through time or space."

Great. Let's see him prove this. Even once. Let's see a morphonogenic text message, or evidence of any signal which can be sent without using energy. Einstein would be spinning in his grave. For crying out loud this is the sort of theory I came up with in junior school.

When radio waves were a theory, they were demonstrable in experiments. Because theorists were able to put their demonstrations where their mouths were, we have telegrams, telephones, televisions, etc. Energy wave transmission has met the burden of proof. The very evidence that you can read this essay proves the theory is a fact. Sheldrake's claims run contrary to everything we've ever proven about energy or matter. He simply makes the same conclusion I did when I was working out the laws of elementalism: Since there is no evidence of the signal, it has to be an undetectable signal not bound by earthly rules. It's rubbish and it doesn't wash.

"Sheldrake illustrates his idea with the analogy of a television set. Though we can alter the images on our screens by adjusting components or distorting them---just as we can alter or distort phenotypical characteristics through genetic engineering---it by no means follows that the images are coming from inside the television set. They are in fact encoded as information coming from electromagnetic frequencies which the skillful arrangement of the transistors and circuits within the television set enables us to pick up and render visible. Likewise, it is not at all necessary for us to assume that the physical characteristics of organisms are contained inside the genes, which may in fact be analogous to transistors tuned in to the proper frequencies for translating invisible information into visible form."

Give me strength. This theory completely ignores the work of genetic scientists everywhere. So now, rather than isolating individual strands of DNA and re-sequencing them with different codes, splicing new codes into the pattern and being able to accurately predict the results, the scientists are merely tweaking the morphogenetic fields; somehow blocking this magical signal. (Which, if you remember, is a signal that cannot be degraded by space or time.)

So now when Monsanto develops a high yield dwarf wheat with natural resistance to fungus and a high calcium content, this is merely the result of disturbances in the Force. Way to go, Yoda.

"Thus, morphogenetic fields are located invisibly in and around organisms, and may account for such hitherto unexplainable phenomena as the regeneration of severed limbs by worms and salamanders, phantom limbs. the holographic properties of memory, telepathy, and the increasing ease with which new skills are learned as greater quantities of a population acquire them."

The Reith lectures 2003 will tell you all you need to know about "hitherto unexplainable" phantom limbs, including how to cure them. It's nothing to do with morphonogenetic fields, but by ignoring work that not only explains how this very real suffering is caused, but also demonstrates how the symptoms can be completely removed (What Vilayanur S. Ramachandran refers to as "The world's first amputation of a phantom limb") He is free to invent mystical explanations which make him sound very clever. If you're going to ignore the facts, you can sound very clever indeed. Is it only me that gets angry that even I know more science than Sheldrake?

"When Sheldrake's first book was published, needless to say, there was great controversy in the academic journals regarding the value of his hypothesis. One reviewer in Nature magazine considered that the book would make good kindling for a fire, at least, if nothing else. Such reactions, however, are an indication that someone has come up with a perspective containing enough incendiary potential to melt down the rusted old paradigm and reforge it into something fresh."

One reviewer? Just One? Check out Nature and enter "Sheldrake" in their search engine. Unfortunately since you have to pay to use their archive I'm not in a position to read the full articles, but even the opening paragraphs give a good indication that at least a few dozen educated men and women who write for Nature would gladly see him pelted with rotten tomatoes. Want to see some more? Try a search of the keywords "Sheldrake" and "pseudoscience" on google. This man is about as popular amongst the scientific community as Osama at a George W Bush rally.

The scientific community doesn't hate new ideas. It loves them. It jumps on them and tries to grab a lock of their hair. It's not the fact that Sheldrake's ideas are new that they don't like. It's that they're bullshit. They are indemonstrable theories, disprovable claims, downright lies and ridiculous assumptions. Credible new papers are being written every day. Just check out New Scientist every month for a dazzling array of mind-blowing fresh thinking. The process never stops. Sheldrake's problem isn't that he's "challenging the rusted old paradigm". His problem is that he's a crackpot.

Anyway. I'll skip the bibliography. I haven't read the books (yet), so I can't comment on them. I've found a lot written about his books online, but I won't bother to repeat it here, except to say that one of the funniest things I've read was a page by somebody who'd repeatedly attempted the "Seven Experiments that Could Change the World" in the vain hope that just one of them might come true. My copy is on order and eagerly awaited.

The Interview.

"When I arrived in India and discussed it with Hindu friends and colleagues, they took the opposite approach; they said, "There's nothing new in this, it was all known millennia ago to the ancient rishis." So, they found the ideas perfectly acceptable; the only thing was, they weren't particularly interested in extending them into a scientific hypothesis."

Great. His theories ring true with primitive superstitions. I can hear Thor getting his hammer out. The fact that his ideas are more closely identifiable to Flat Earth pre-scientific fairy stories does not fill me with confidence. To quote Michael Shermer again: "Scientists do not improvise details or make wild guesses from anecdotes and bits of folklore" ("Why People Believe Weird Things", page 18)

"But the germs of these ideas, the roots of my own thought, are in Western philosophy and science rather than Oriental philosophy. So, it's a kind of convergence."

And there we have it, boys and girls. Sheldrake has pinned his colours to the mast. This is science. It's not theology, it's not metaphysics. The roots, therefore, the very foundations of his argument are based on Western philosophy and science. This is what he's asking us to accept and this is the very reason why I hate him so much. If he were just a theorist I could forgive him. But he's not. He's claiming that this work is scientific. It's absolutely inexcusable.

On ghosts -

"This is a very hazy area of speculation and not one I've thought through rigorously. And I've had no incentive to think it through rigorously because it's so hard to think of repeatable experiments with ghosts."

I'm impressed that Sheldrake is suddenly interested in repeatable experiments. I think the expression "when it suits" springs to mind. But now that he's decided that repeatable experiments are the way forward, how do you think he explains his this next bit?

On The Brain-

"...you go further in suggesting that memories may not be stored in the brain at all, but rather that the brain acts as a tuning device and picks up memories analogously to the way a television tunes in to certain frequencies. Furthermore, you've suggested that if memories aren't stored in the brain at all, this leaves the door open for the possibility of the existence of the soul. Can you explain how your ideas on the existence of the soul fit into this paradigm?"

How can any reply to this statement not begin with "That's absolute crap" and end with "Unless you stop misquoting me like that you're going to hear from my solicitor!"?

I feel I've reached such an unbelievable point of absolute bullshit that there is no need to pursue this any further. Again. I'll draw you back to the Reith Lectures 2003. No matter how much you may like or dislike ramachandran's athiestic approach, you have to give him credit for three very important reasons:

1 - He can PROVE his claims that the brain works in a way entirely contrary to Sheldrake's claims by demonstrating accurately what happens to people whose brains have been injured.

2 - He can document and demonstrate results based on his theories. His ideas hold up to real world scrutiny and are not based on fanciful imaginings.

3 - (And this is the really important bit) He isn't just saying this stuff to sell books. He is a full time, hands-on Neurosurgeon who has dramatically changed and benefited the lives of real people who have been suffering almost unimaginable misery.

I have a friend who suffers from schizophrenia and it is precisely for this reason that people like Sheldrake make me so angry. When somebody who's suffering from that condition hears voices, they are simply receiving a signal from a mis-firing synapse in the brain. Their mind interprets this unexpected stimulation using a nearby section of the mind. Perhaps an auditory centre, perhaps a language centre. It is perfectly understandable that when you feed the random signals into a filter that is designed to make sense of input that the sufferer will come up with what is considered a "voice".

I can't even begin to imagine how frightening this experience must be for such people, or how unsettling it must be. Really. I acknowledge that. I've got no idea.

However. I have no intention of sitting passively by while this lunatic fills the heads of suffering people with this garbage that allows them to believe that their brains are nothing more than a receiver for evil memories and ghosts.

The human mind is NOT a receiver for ghosts, memories, pan dimensional spooks or morphonogenic fields. It is an interpretive device for sifting through sensory input to increase your chances of survival. It is a series of learned facts held for decision making, and it is a tool for reasoning. To claim anything else... It's just wrong.

Real scientists are working hard to come up with drugs that can mask the symptoms of schizophrenia. Maybe their efforts are a little primitive. Maybe they don't know as much as they'd like to, but at least they're working towards something they believe in. Those people and their like deserve our admiration and support.

People like Sheldrake?

What do they deserve?

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