# Morphic Resonance: Promising Theory or Pseudoscience? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 8, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706 "2014-10-08T00:27:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![YoungKusher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3e96dc/32.png) [@YoungKusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoungKusher)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/1 "2014-10-08T00:27:01Z")
For those of you who don’t know what morphic resonance is and/or would like to read about it, I’ve provided a couple sources. I found this topic particularly interesting simply because of the evidence supporting it. I would like to know what others think about it. ``` The best source I can recommend is actually a podcast. I'm sure many of you won't bother with that, but if you want the best explanation, here it is: The Joe Rogan Experience #550 featuring Rupert Sheldrake (from minute 10-25) they talk about it more than that, but that's where the highest concentration of information is. Also, I realize Joe Rogan can be an idiot, however, Rupert Sheldrake is not... Joe has a lot of other pretty interesting guests on his show if you're interested. Here is a simple source that is really just an explanation (and not a great one at that), the podcast actually uses multiple experiments' data to back up the theory. Introduction to morphic resonance and morphic fields: http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/papers/morphic/morphic_intro.html Source for one of his own experiments: http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/papers/morphic/formative.html ``` Forgive me if this topic is sloppy. I haven’t done this in a while and I’m feeling too lazy to type up my own summary of the plausibility of morphic resonance. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/2 "2014-10-08T00:46:25Z")
> [@YoungKusher](#): > > Forgive me if this topic is sloppy. I haven’t done this in a while and I’m feeling too lazy to type up my own summary of the plausibility of morphic resonance. Okay, you’re forgiven for being sloppy, but could you summarize just what the fuck “morphic resonance” is so we can decide if it’s anything we want to look into? Very few people are going to click on your links otherwise, I’d guess. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/3 "2014-10-08T00:46:57Z")
Pseudoscience. Definitely pseudoscience. It’s a hypothesis for why X is true, when X is not true. If that is recognised as evidence your hypothesis is incorrect, it’s science. If that’s not recognised as evidence your hypothesis is correct, it’s pseudoscience. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/4 "2014-10-08T00:48:10Z")
Pseudoscience. There’s never been anything to it. Sheldrake pretty much [advocates for every pseudoscience he happens across](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake#The_Science_Delusion_.28Science_Set_Free.29) as far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/5 "2014-10-08T00:48:31Z")
This stuff is well known as pseudoscientific woo. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/6 "2014-10-08T01:37:39Z")
> [@YoungKusher](#): > > For those of you who don’t know what morphic resonance is and/or would like to read about it, I’ve provided a couple sources. I found this topic particularly interesting simply because of the evidence supporting it. I would like to know what others think about it. Interesting, only in the sense that I had not heard about it. So I looked at what take the most serious groups have on this item. And it is not pretty, Sheldrake is not being taken seriously at all. > **[Rupert's Resonance](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ruperts-resonance/)** > > The theory of "morphic resonance" posits that people have a sense of when they are being stared at. What does the research show? > [@](#): > > Morphic resonance, Sheldrake says, is “the idea of mysterious telepathy-type interconnections between organisms and of collective memories within species” and accounts for phantom limbs, how dogs know when their owners are coming home, and how people know when someone is staring at them. “Vision may involve a two-way process, an inward movement of light and an outward projection of mental images,” Sheldrake explains. Thousands of trials conducted by anyone who downloaded the experimental protocol from Sheldrake’s Web page “have given positive, repeatable, and highly significant results, implying that there is indeed a widespread sensitivity to being stared at from behind.” > > Let us examine this claim more closely. First, science is not normally conducted by strangers who happen on a Web page protocol, so we have no way of knowing if these amateurs controlled for intervening variables and experimenter biases. > > Second, psychologists dismiss anecdotal accounts of this sense to a reverse self-fulfilling effect: a person suspects being stared at and turns to check; such head movement catches the eyes of would-be starers, who then turn to look at the staree, who thereby confirms the feeling of being stared at. > > Skepticism is the default position. > > Third, in 2000 John Colwell of Middlesex University in London conducted a formal test using Sheldrake’s experimental protocol. Twelve volunteers participated in 12 sequences of 20 stare or no-stare trials each and received accuracy feedback for the final nine sessions. Results: subjects could detect being stared at only when accuracy feedback was provided, which Colwell attributed to the subjects learning what was, in fact, a nonrandom presentation of the trials. When University of Hertfordshire psychologist Richard Wiseman also attempted to replicate Sheldrake’s research, he found that subjects detected stares at rates no better than chance. > > Fourth, confirmation bias (where we look for and find confirmatory evidence for what we already believe) may be at work here. In a special issue in June of the Journal of Consciousness Studies devoted to a fierce debate between “Sheldrake and His Critics,” I rated the 14 open peer commentaries on Sheldrake’s target article (on the sense of being stared at) on a scale of 1 to 5 (critical, mildly critical, neutral, mildly supportive, supportive). Without exception, the 1’s, 2’s and 3’s were all traditional scientists with mainstream affiliations, whereas the 4’s and 5’s were all affiliated with fringe and pro-paranormal institutions. (For complete results, see Table 1 in the online version of this column at [www.sciam.com](http://www.sciam.com)) > > Fifth, there is an experimenter bias problem. Institute of Noetic Sciences researcher Marilyn Schlitz–a believer in psychic phenomena–collaborated with Wiseman (a skeptic of psi) in replicating Sheldrake’s research and discovered that when they did the staring Schlitz found statistically significant results, whereas Wiseman found chance results. > [@YoungKusher](#): > > Forgive me if this topic is sloppy. I haven’t done this in a while and I’m feeling too lazy to type up my own summary of the plausibility of morphic resonance. Well, I do hope that you are not so lazy as not having enough will to check scientific and sceptical sites that have already looked at this, for no punches hold and sometimes rude take on pseudo-science check Rationalwiky. > **[Rupert Sheldrake](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake)** > > Rupert Sheldrake (1942–) is a British former scientist (very former, as in not doing science any more) who, since the 1980s, has preferred to promote his own pet theory of everything called morphic resonance or morphic field. Sheldrake believes that... > [@](#): > > Most of Sheldrake’s ideas are clearly pseudoscientific nonsense. Morphic resonance is extremely vague and ill-defined, and can only really be described as whatever Sheldrake says it is. Crucially, it is not falsifiable, and therefore not testable (although some have tried). > > His latest book, “The Science Delusion” is an anti-scientific rant, in which he applies postmodernist hyperscepticism to science, accusing scientists of adhering to “scientific dogmata”, such as the constancy of the speed of light. Ironically, Sheldrake fails to apply any sort of scepticism to his own ideas, which he promotes uncritically, despite there being no evidence for them. But for a more serious take, that is not much different, check the Skeptics Dictionary first. [http://www.skepdic.com/morphicres.html](http://www.skepdic.com/morphicres.html) > [@](#): > > While this metaphysical proposition does seem to make room for telepathy, it does so at the expense of ignoring Occam’s razor. Telepathy and such things as phantom limbs, for example, can be explained without adding the metaphysical baggage of morphic resonance. So can memory, which does not require a holographic paradigm, by the way. The notion that new skills are learned with increasing ease as greater quantities of a population acquire them, known as the hundredth monkey phenomenon, is bogus. > > In short, although Sheldrake commands some respect as a scientist because of his education and degree, he has clearly abandoned conventional science in favor of magical thinking. This is his right, of course. However, his continued pose as a scientist on the frontier of discovery is unwarranted. He is one of a growing horde of “alternative” scientists whose resentment at the aspiritual nature of modern scientific paradigms, as well as the obviously harmful and seemingly indifferent applications of modern science, have led them to seek their own paradigms in ancient and long-abandoned concepts. These paradigms are not new, though the terminology is. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/7 "2014-10-08T02:25:37Z")
I legitimately thought “morphic resonance” was something Terry Pratchett invented in his Discworld novels to hand-wave the more implausible aspects of a world carried on the back of four elephants standing on a colossal turtle. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/8 "2014-10-08T02:30:31Z")
> [@YoungKusher](#): > > Forgive me if this topic is sloppy. I haven’t done this in a while and I’m feeling too lazy to type up my own summary of the plausibility of morphic resonance. So, you’re too lazy and you want us to pick up the slack? No thanks. If you think there is something to this, make your case. If you don’t want to be bothered, then, neither do I. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/9 "2014-10-08T03:55:19Z")
I read \*A New Science of Life \*and \*The Presence of the Past \*years ago. His arguments were convincing enough for me to think there might be something to them, that they were worthy of further exploration. It’s clear now that at least some of his hypotheses have been tested and failed. I don’t automatically dismiss his entire theory but I am skeptical. Sheldrake’s theories are probably wrong, but they could lead to something that’s right and yet undiscovered. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/10 "2014-10-08T04:09:36Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > I read \*A New Science of Life \*and \*The Presence of the Past \*years ago. His arguments were convincing enough for me to think there might be something to them, that they were worthy of further exploration. > > It’s clear now that at least some of his hypotheses have been tested and failed. I don’t automatically dismiss his entire theory but I am skeptical. Sheldrake’s theories are probably wrong, but they could lead to something that’s right and yet undiscovered. Not likely as the efforts of Sheldrake are not concentrated on publishing science, he is more into publishing books. > **[Adam Rutherford: Sheldrake persists in his claims, despite their having been...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/feb/05/evolution)** > > Adam Rutherford: Sheldrake persists in his claims, despite the fact that there's no evidence for them. This is bad science > [@](#): > > Which brings us to Rupert Sheldrake. The majority of Sheldrake’s work is also not subjected to peer review, as it appears mostly in books. One of his books focuses on a canine phenomenon as specious as that told by McEwan and is entitled “Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home”. Others are “The Sense of Being Stared At”, and now a third edition, which has prompted this Cif miniseries, of “A New Science of Life”. > > In it, Sheldrake describes “morphic resonance”, which is the notion that there is a supernatural memory that is created, reinforced and inherited by repeated action. This, he claims, explains many phenomena including how newly synthesised chemicals become easier to make elsewhere in the world, how puzzles become easier once they have been done once, and paranormal powers, such as psychokinesis and telepathy. Alas, there is no evidence for morphic resonance. And as the phenomena listed are not real, no matter how real they may seem to people, there is no requirement for it. > > Sheldrake is a sort of “God of the gaps” scientist. He sees gaps in knowledge, and inserts supernature as an explanation. There are three basic flaws with use of this tool. First is that it’s just not scientific. To invoke an unfalsifiable concept to fill a knowledge gap is not parsimonious. It’s much better and more scientific to simply say “We don’t know” and move on. > > Second, history has shown us that it would be even better to say “we don’t know yet”, as invariably those gaps are filled in time with genuine testable explanations. > > Finally, more often than not, the gaps invoked actually have perfectly good, scientific explanations, which are ignored because the protagonist is not disinterested. Thus, proponents of intelligent design, that pseudoscientific form of creationism, invoke a designer where evolution will happily suffice, because they wish to promote God. It’s impossible to establish exactly what Rupert Sheldrake is promoting, but one guess is that it’s Rupert Sheldrake. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/11 "2014-10-08T07:01:18Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Okay, you’re forgiven for being sloppy, but could you summarize just what the fuck “morphic resonance” is so we can decide if it’s anything we want to look into? > > Very few people are going to click on your links otherwise, I’d guess. Morphic resonance in a nutshell; the claim that: [ul] [li]You teach a rat to negotiate a maze until it can do it consistently measurably faster than it did the first time.[/li][li]Other rats will subsequently be able to negotiate the same maze fast, _because they are also rats_ (and somehow tuned in to some collective resource common with the rat that learned the maze itself).[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![YoungKusher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3e96dc/32.png) [@YoungKusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoungKusher)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/12 "2014-10-08T23:39:15Z")
Well, what I was most interested in was how morphic resonance could relate to evolution. ``` I see a lot of copying and pasting of what major authorities generally have to say about Rupert Sheldrake and his theories, but I'd like an alternative, and logical, explanation for some of the other experimental evidence referred to by Sheldrake. For instance, Sheldrake discusses William McDougall's experiment where rats are required to navigate a water maze. They succeed by traveling through the exit where there is no light and recieve an electrical shock by traveling through the exit that has a light. The rats learned to successfully navigate the maze after about 250 trials. The next generation of those rats learned it in about 180 trials. Then the third generation in 150. This at first seems to be in the realm of epigenetics, but... Subsequently, researchers in Scotland and Australia tried repeating the experiment and discovered that the their rats learned the maze in significantly less trials right off the bat. What's to be concluded from this? That Scottish and Australian rats are smarter than Harvard rats? Well that's how I was *going* to paraphrase Shelfake until I started reading the actual reports done by each group. Even though both the Scottish and Australian labs set out with the intent to disprove McDougall, it seems they were legitimately able to do so. Mcdougall was looking for a Lamarkian effect as to why the rats could learn faster than their parents. The other experimenters were able to show this effect, but it was not sustained and was equaled by the control group over time. However, the W. E. AGAR AND F. H. DRUMMOND, O. W. TIEGS AND M. M. GUNSON experiment brought up multiple factors that could skew the results. The biggest one being the health of the rats selected to do each particular series of trials and the health of the colony in general. It really seems as though you could get any results you wanted from this experiment simply by hand picking certain rats from each generation. There are multiple other examples of evidence for morphic resonance that Sheldrake uses. The one about chickadees (blue tits) stealing cream from the morning milk bottles in Europe, the experiment on day old chicks pecking shiny objects which I posted a link to in my OP, and also an experiment involving rats and acetophenone. ``` The day old chick experiment tries to prove morphic resonance. They use a different batch of day old, or naive, chicks (which are prone to pecking shiny objects) for every trial. They use a chrome bead and a yellow led and expose any chick that pecks at the yellow led to an adverse effect and any chick that pecks at the chrome bead a neutral effect. He then goes on to show that chicks generally learn to avoid the yellow led, but not the chrome bead. Or at least he says that’s what he’s showing. I’m not a scientist. It’s difficult for me to interpret the report on the experiment. Can anyone tell me if this guy is full of crap or if his experiment is showing what he says it is? It really seems like this guy exaggerates in the podcast and makes it sound like the evidence supports his theory, when in reality, he is bending the truth a bit. Does anyone think the experiments suggest some means to transfer memory outside of genetics? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/13 "2014-10-09T01:31:28Z")
> [@YoungKusher](#): > > Well, what I was most interested in was how morphic resonance could relate to evolution. > > ``` > I see a lot of copying and pasting of what major authorities generally have to say about Rupert Sheldrake and his theories, but I'd like an alternative, and logical, explanation for some of the other experimental evidence referred to by Sheldrake. > > For instance, Sheldrake discusses William McDougall's experiment where rats are required to navigate a water maze. They succeed by traveling through the exit where there is no light and recieve an electrical shock by traveling through the exit that has a light. The rats learned to successfully navigate the maze after about 250 trials. The next generation of those rats learned it in about 180 trials. Then the third generation in 150. This at first seems to be in the realm of epigenetics, but... > > Subsequently, researchers in Scotland and Australia tried repeating the experiment and discovered that the their rats learned the maze in significantly less trials right off the bat. What's to be concluded from this? That Scottish and Australian rats are smarter than Harvard rats? > > Well that's how I was *going* to paraphrase Shelfake until I started reading the actual reports done by each group. Even though both the Scottish and Australian labs set out with the intent to disprove McDougall, it seems they were legitimately able to do so. Mcdougall was looking for a Lamarkian effect as to why the rats could learn faster than their parents. The other experimenters were able to show this effect, but it was not sustained and was equaled by the control group over time. > > However, the W. E. AGAR AND F. H. DRUMMOND, O. W. TIEGS AND M. M. GUNSON experiment brought up multiple factors that could skew the results. The biggest one being the health of the rats selected to do each particular series of trials and the health of the colony in general. > > It really seems as though you could get any results you wanted from this experiment simply by hand picking certain rats from each generation. > > ``` Hardly a thing that shows that Sheldrake was correct, as others found it is guys like McDougall the ones that did not do things properly or in a way that leaves lots of doubt, the point here is that then more research should be done to confirm it, but so far the confirmations I saw go the other way, as in there is no good evidence to support the woo explanation. [http://jeb.biologists.org/content/31/3/307](http://jeb.biologists.org/content/31/3/307) > [@YoungKusher](#): > > ``` > There are multiple other examples of evidence for morphic resonance that Sheldrake uses. The one about chickadees (blue tits) stealing cream from the morning milk bottles in Europe, the experiment on day old chicks pecking shiny objects which I posted a link to in my OP, and also an experiment involving rats and acetophenone. > > ``` > > The day old chick experiment tries to prove morphic resonance. They use a different batch of day old, or naive, chicks (which are prone to pecking shiny objects) for every trial. They use a chrome bead and a yellow led and expose any chick that pecks at the yellow led to an adverse effect and any chick that pecks at the chrome bead a neutral effect. He then goes on to show that chicks generally learn to avoid the yellow led, but not the chrome bead. Or at least he says that’s what he’s showing. I’m not a scientist. It’s difficult for me to interpret the report on the experiment. Can anyone tell me if this guy is full of crap or if his experiment is showing what he says it is? > > It really seems like this guy exaggerates in the podcast and makes it sound like the evidence supports his theory, when in reality, he is bending the truth a bit. Does anyone think the experiments suggest some means to transfer memory outside of genetics? As I noticed in a discussion in a science board, the original research should be consulted, but it was not found or available, so there is that and also using some logic I think that a lot can be explained by the way milk was packed, the beak of the birds and their sense of smell, seeing how crows can solve very ingenious puzzles, I think it is kinda silly to assume other birds could not find an opportunity in a change in the ways milk was packaged and use it (I would like to check if the milk bottle makers changed their caps from metal to just a foil like material or a paper cap) So, yeah, I can say that this guy is full of crap, by this time more recent research and scientific publications should had been made, and I have observed that many times the ones that are pushing pseudo-science get stuck in research was done ages ago, for them it does not matter that a lot of research from the day contradicted or minimized what they claimed, but they ignore that and continue recycling the same debunked yarn in **new** popular books. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/14 "2014-10-09T02:07:41Z")
One thing that should be noticed: > [@YoungKusher](#): > > ``` > I see a lot of copying and pasting of what major authorities generally have to say about Rupert Sheldrake and his theories, but I'd like an alternative, and logical, explanation for some of the other experimental evidence referred to by Sheldrake. > > ``` You know, the moment I see someone starting by just dismissing what authorities do have to say, the more then I assume the questioner is not really interesting in learning. As the examples those authorities logically and experimentally debunked shows, what Sheldrake continues to do is a real example of just “copying and pasting”, that is done when there is a lot of experts that looked at those claims in the past and concluded that there was nothing there and those conclusions are wilfully ignored. The point here is the same I apply to creationists and climate change deniers, I will take them a little bit more seriously if they acknowledge the many debunkings that took place in the past and drop many of their “examples” of “supporting evidence” forever, but instead what I see is\*\* a continuous recycling and reusing of the debunked information\*\* that makes me conclude that it is more likely that even in the cases of studies or reports that could lead to something are being hopelessly mishandled by the proponents of the pseudo-science. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/15 "2014-10-09T05:44:15Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I legitimately thought “morphic resonance” was something Terry Pratchett invented in his Discworld novels to hand-wave the more implausible aspects of a world carried on the back of four elephants standing on a colossal turtle. Morphic resonance definitely exists. There’s even an entry at [TVtropes.org](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MorphicResonance). Referenced works include Pokémon, Ranma ½, Plastic Man, Discworld and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. No reference to Sheldrake though. Personally, I’m glad to have a theory that explains pretty much everything. Car breaks down? Morphic resonance. Lose your balance? Morphic resonance. Win the lottery? Well, you know: morphic resonance. “Cambridge botanist Rupert Sheldrake” also rolls off the tongue well: it’s somehow reassuring that a botanist discovered the subperceptional matrix underlying the cosmos. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/16 "2014-10-09T12:30:19Z")
Well, anything involving a podcast (or a YouTube video) pretty much _has_ to be true. I always start with that premise. “how dogs know when their owners are coming home” They hear them. Duh. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/17 "2014-10-09T12:56:07Z")
Anecdotal “evidence:” My dog would perk up and watch the door whenever she heard a car on the street. She was kind of stupid that way, and never seemed to learn exactly what my or my wife’s car sounded like. ---
**Author:** ![jharvey963](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/54ee81/32.png) [@jharvey963](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jharvey963)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/18 "2014-10-09T21:53:11Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Anecdotal “evidence:” > > My dog would perk up and watch the door whenever she heard a car on the street. She was kind of stupid that way, and never seemed to learn exactly what my or my wife’s car sounded like. I also saw an experiment on Brain Games (I think) that implied that dogs were using scent to determine when the man was going to get home. In the “normal” situation the dog would get attentive just when the man was going to get home. If the man exercised at lunch, then his wife brought his workout clothes back to the house and spread them around, the dog didn’t stir. This suggests that the dog is using a certain decrease in the man’s scent to expect him to come home. J. ---
**Author:** ![YoungKusher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3e96dc/32.png) [@YoungKusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoungKusher)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/19 "2014-10-09T23:45:10Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > One thing that should be noticed: > > You know, the moment I see someone starting by just dismissing what authorities do have to say, the more then I assume the questioner is not really interesting in learning. As the examples those authorities logically and experimentally debunked shows, what Sheldrake continues to do is a real example of just “copying and pasting”, that is done when there is a lot of experts that looked at those claims in the past and concluded that there was nothing there and those conclusions are wilfully ignored. > > The point here is the same I apply to creationists and climate change deniers, I will take them a little bit more seriously if they acknowledge the many debunkings that took place in the past and drop many of their “examples” of “supporting evidence” forever, but instead what I see is\*\* a continuous recycling and reusing of the debunked information\*\* that makes me conclude that it is more likely that even in the cases of studies or reports that could lead to something are being hopelessly mishandled by the proponents of the pseudo-science. You know, as much as I like the “condescending intellectual” persona many people assume on this forum, it can get annoying when they miss the point. I wasn’t dismissing what authorities have to say. I was dismissing what _you_ chose to quote them on as it did not satisfy my want for “an alternative and logical explanation” of the experiments he is using as evidence. I preempted my dismissal by clarifying what I wanted know, in case you hadn’t noticed. No where did you cite where these authorities “logically and experimentally debunked” all of Sheldrake’s evidence. I was simply asking for an explanation of these experiments so that I _could_ maybe learn something. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Hardly a thing that shows that Sheldrake was correct, as others found it is guys like McDougall the ones that did not do things properly or in a way that leaves lots of doubt, the point here is that then more research should be done to confirm it, but so far the confirmations I saw go the other way, as in there is no good evidence to support the woo explanation. > > [http://jeb.biologists.org/content/31/3/307](http://jeb.biologists.org/content/31/3/307) Well thank you for agreeing with me assuming you realize that’s what you were doing. That is nearly the same source I used before making my previous post. [http://jeb.biologists.org/content/31/3/307.full.pdf](http://jeb.biologists.org/content/31/3/307.full.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706/20 "2014-10-10T00:19:00Z")
> [@YoungKusher](#): > > You know, as much as I like the “condescending intellectual” persona many people assume on this forum, it can get annoying when they miss the point. > > I wasn’t dismissing what authorities have to say. I was dismissing what _you_ chose to quote them on as it did not satisfy my want for “an alternative and logical explanation” of the experiments he is using as evidence. I preempted my dismissal by clarifying what I wanted know, in case you hadn’t noticed. > > No where did you cite where these authorities “logically and experimentally debunked” all of Sheldrake’s evidence. I was simply asking for an explanation of these experiments so that I _could_ maybe learn something. > > Well thank you for agreeing with me assuming you realize that’s what you were doing. That is nearly the same source I used before making my previous post. > > [http://jeb.biologists.org/content/31/3/307.full.pdf](http://jeb.biologists.org/content/31/3/307.full.pdf) He don’t know me really well huh folks? 🙂 I did that on purpose. Indeed it was the same source and it shows just about the opposite of you claimed to be. Now why was that? And BTW most of what the authorities (that you are still ignoring really) used logic too, so I have no idea why this point could be missed: I would not give much value to this issue, it is indeed just pseudo-science. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morphic-resonance-promising-theory-or-pseudoscience/700706.md?page=2)