Sheldrake responds that skeptics dampen the morphic field, whereas believers enhance it. Of Wiseman, he remarked: "Perhaps his negative expectations consciously or unconsciously influenced the way he looked at the subjects."

Perhaps, but wouldn't that mean that this claim is ultimately nonfalsifiable? If both positive and negative results are interpreted as supporting a theory, how can we test its validity? Skepticism is the default position because the burden of proof is on the believer, not the skeptic.

This article was originally published with the title Rupert's Resonance.

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.

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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
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

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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?

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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??

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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.

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