A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative CausationAfter chemists crystallised a new chemical for the first time, it became easier and easier to crystallise in laboratories all over the world. After rats at Harvard first escaped from a new kind of water maze, successive generations learned quicker and quicker. Then rats in Melbourne, Australia, learned yet faster. Rats with no trained ancestors shared in this improvement. Rupert Sheldrake sees these processes as examples of morphic resonance. Past forms and activities of organisms, he argues, influence organisms in the present through direct connections across time and space. Sheldrake reinterprets the regularities of nature as being more like habits than immutable laws. |
Contents
PREFACE TO THE 2009 EDITION | 1 |
INTRODUCTION | 25 |
THE UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF BIOLOGY | 35 |
Copyright | |
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acquired characteristics actually animals atoms become behavioural fields biological bithorax BOHM Bose-Einstein condensates brain cells changes chemical chicks chreodes complex conscious crystals depend effect electrons energetic energy environment epigenetic inheritance evolution example existence experiment experimental explained in terms factors final form flies formative causation genes genetic higher-level hiragana hybrids hypothesis of formative increase individual influence inheritance of acquired instinctive kind Lamarckian large numbers living organisms mechanistic theory melting points membrane microtubules molecular molecules morphic fields morphic resonance morphic units morpho morphogenetic fields morphogenetic germs motor fields movements mutations natural selection nerve nervous system normal occur particles particular past systems patterns of behaviour phenocopies phic resonance physical plants polymorphs possible predictions previous similar probability structures problem proteins quantum mechanics random rate of learning rats repeated result role Section Sheldrake spatial species stimuli temperature tion tissues University variety virtual form Waddington