Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to do a newspaper crossword puzzle later in the day? Me neither. But according to Rupert Sheldrake, it is because the collective successes of the morning resonate through the cultural morphic field.

In Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance, similar forms (morphs, or "fields of information") reverberate and exchange information within a universal life force. "Natural systems, such as termite colonies, or pigeons, or orchid plants, or insulin molecules, inherit a collective memory from all previous things of their kind, however far away they were and however long ago they existed," Sheldrake writes in his 1988 book, Presence of the Past (Park Street Press). "Things are as they are because they were as they were." In this book and subsequent ones, Sheldrake, a botanist trained at the University of Cambridge, details the theory.

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.

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)

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.

5 Comments

1. 1. erikson 09:32 PM 11/25/07

   Panpsychism and morphic resonance are becoming more in vogue as quantum uncertainty principles are studied.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

2. 2. Jamrolls 01:23 PM 2/1/10

   If you sense that someone is staring at you this is not just that the light reflected from you is being received. The starer had a motivation. Sexual attraction, recognition, is that a wig?, you pushed in, I'm going to get you, etc.
   Replicating this motivation and it's intensity is the experimental problem. A sceptic would not even know what it is that must accompany the stare, the 'field like' sub text.
   I would say that whatever is going on during the stare is in fact part of a constant sea of flowing energies that has been 'tuned out' to simplify our cheek by jowel lives.
   This is in fact my experience. Life seen through this perspective makes sense of so much but is very difficult to accept until you can be honest with yourself about your own nature, at least it was for me.
   I will tick the 'email me' box below. I would be happy to expand on, or defend my views. James S. UK
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

3. 3. rich23 08:27 AM 3/8/10

   People really need to read more Korzybski and R.A. Wilson. The paragraph on "confirmation bias" is quite hilarious, as it reveals the author's unwillingness to acknowledge her own "confirmation bias".
   
   "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."
   
   All this actually tells you is that the people who've been trained to think in a certain way, think according to how they've been trained. The words "fringe" and "pro-paranormal" are far from value-free, although it seems obvious to me at least that paradigm-changing ideas come not from the mainstream, but from the fringes.
   
   Another illuminating quote:
   "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. "
   
   Right... and Wiseman, because he found only chance results, is ok: but Schlitz is a BAD SCIENTIST because her results supported her conclusion. Which is only what Wiseman did.
   
   If scientists' results almost always reflect their beliefs, how are we to know who's right?

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

4. 4. Annavi 09:35 PM 4/9/10

   As an avid researcher of this-my senior thesis in high school- It is obviously much more than a simple case of staring and random phenomena. Connect the dots. There are countless similar theories. People have thought similar things throughout the ages. C.G.Jung, a psychologist, proposed the theory of the 'collective uncoinscious', where archetypes, or thoughts, symbols, overused thoughts, impulses, even INSTINCTS, are criticized as beind formed through these...'leftover' memories, used memories, if you will. Similar to these morphogenetic fields, morphic resonance, etc. as prposed by Sheldrake. Not seeming biased; that's impossible. Okay, so you want to sound professional, hear all sides, etc., etc... Well, what DO you think? This THEORY is so controversial, yet PROVABLE, if given the chance, and the time, to look over it. Religion. Myths. THE CROSS. The oddly-unanimous belief of dragons, or dragon-like creatures across the globe. Could these not be the ancient, leftover memories, just compatible enough for us to pick up on them, of dinosaurs- though they were not from our own species, but from one which is infinitely older??

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

5. 5. krandall 05:16 AM 2/2/12

   i have this critique of the study mentioned; under the section labeled, appropriately, "Skepticism is the default position." it says of the testing performed to disprove the theory that, "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. "
   Which suggests that the tests actually supported the theory (granted only under the specific condition of having provided feedback) but that the tester gave an alternative explanation to why the data fit with the theory - and if they thought that these positive results were due to the test being conducted in a non-random way, then why not simply re-do the test with true random presentation and remove that variable?
   Ironically the next paragraph begins, "Fourth, confirmation bias may be at work here." It thens gives reference to a detailed break down critique Sheldrakes work, however that link goes to a Page not Found.
   
   the fact is, these kinds of effects can be studied scientifically quite easily - and they should be, with confirmation bias removed.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this