Attached are some papers related to Rupert Sheldrake, a current target of defamation, famous for his hypothesis of morphic resonance, which he describes as "a process whereby self-organising systems inherit a memory from previous similar systems. In its most general formulation, morphic resonance means that the so-called laws of nature are more like habits. The hypothesis of mophic resonance also leads to a radically new interpretation of memory storage in the brain and of biological inheritance. Memory need not be stored in material traces inside brains, which are more like TV receivers than video recorders, tuning into influences from the past. And biological inheritance need not all be coded in the genes, or in epigenetic modifications of the genes; much of it depends on morphic resonance from previous members of the species. Thus each individual inherits a collective memory from past members of the species, and also contributes to the collective memory, affecting other members of the species in the future." (http://www.sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance), and which he notably discovered occurred with rat learning: http://www.sheldrake.org/about-rupert-sheldrake/blog/rat-learning-and-morphic-resonance What is written here is in response to the article that is related to Sheldrake "Deepak Chopra Responds to Pseudoscience Allegations. Jerry Coyne Fires Back.": http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115600/deepak-chopra-responds-pseudoscience-allegations?hubRefSrc=email#lf_comment=116991752 I don't really care much for Chopra, but I do like Sheldrake. Some of what occurs here is in the comments section of the article, but I took the opportunity to expand it. My initial commentary did not get through [screenshots of the original are located here: http://tinypic.com/r/29bzqm9/5 http://tinypic.com/r/9u6xqt/5 proof of its removal was given by a correspondent with a picture that says "This comment is no longer visible": http://tinypic.com/r/34pl0xv/5 And a picture of the original link highlighted the failure: http://fyre.it/Zx2mfH.4 However, a version with less links went through: http://fyre.it/XzOgvB.4 (for the ensuing discussion, see: http://fyre.it/zfnsHm.4)] In comments in the discussion , I countered some obections of Coyne's slightly related to Sheldrake that should open up a consideration of these views: "Two things 1) regarding the statement "“alternative” medicine (the last is synonymous with “quackery”)" - another way of looking at this is that opponents of it have not accurately tested it according to the specifications set out by proponents. This is, in spite of the arguments of Paul Offit (my complete rebuttal to his Atlantic Monthly piece in the comments section was either censored or removed because of excessive links), the case with Linus Pauling and his Vitamin C argument. In the major cases, people failed to get positive results because they did not test his claims according to the pharmacokinetics arguments he and his colleagues specified. I have given relevant pharmacokinetics data from an NIH study that corroborated the arguments Pauling was putting forth, and show that when (overlooked) studies match that criteria, they provide positive results. This is provided in my comments to an article Ben Goldacre's blog that are linked to here, an article that is a nucleus for a defense of these views: https://archive.org/details/ReplyToApaTfr7 2) Also, some theorists have proposed that evolution is both Darwinian and Lamarckian (opponents of Sheldrake decry his interest in aspects of Lamarckianism). Opposition to Lamarckianism is increasingly becoming falsified - see, for example, this result showing that mice inherited a learned aversion from their fathers: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/11/15/mice-inherit-the-fears-of-their-fathers/" I mention experiments showing mice inheriting aversions of their fathers as Lamarckian because items like the following, from the MIT Technology review, link these effects to Lamarckianism: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/411880/a-comeback-for-lamarckian-evolution/ Also, regarding some theorists who see room for both Darwin and Lamarck, see the following: http://www.biologydirect.com/content/4/1/42 and the effects described in the Technology Review article are quasi-Lamarckian because the changes didn't fully persist (search for "changes don’t last forever" in the article regarding one of the studies profiled), but the effects described in the learned aversion article seem to be fully Lamarckian, because as the article notes, "Traumatic experiences can actually work themselves into the germ line. When a male mouse becomes afraid of a specific smell, this fear is somehow transmitted into his sperm, the study found. His pups will also be afraid of the odor, and will pass that fear down to their pups." Here's some evidence for neo-Lamarckianism: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1973965/ And I also noted that: It was the physicist Max Planck who said: As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." - Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797) - cited here: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck This view is substantiated by Zeilinger's paper "An Experimental Test of Non-Local Realism", as interpreted by Richard Conn Henry (author of the Nature paper "Living In a Mental World"): http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html Also, the following citation of Vedral, from "Living In a Quantum World", refutes the idea that quantum effects don't apply to macrosystems - he said, "Although quantum effects may be harder to see in the macroworld, the reason has nothing to do with size per se but with the way that quantum systems interact with one another. Until the past decade, experimentalists had not confirmed that quantum behavior persists on a macroscopic scale. Today, however, they routinely do. These effects are more pervasive than anyone ever suspected. They may operate in the cells of our body.": http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=living-in-a-quantum-world This is important because the following shows quantum EPR effects in the brain, supporting these holistic effects in biological systems that might later explain morphic resonance and telepathy: http://physicsessays.org/doi/abs/10.4006/1.3029159 [they don't directly support telepathy, and neither does this related paper this paper by Brian Josephson: http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/papers/bell.html] On telepathy, Maaneli Derakhshani, a graduate student studying theoretical physics at Clemson University, here writes a guest post defending parapsychological research on the blog “Rationally Speaking” by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York and parapsychology skeptic. It is a very good defense of it: http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/12/alternative-take-on-esp.html A refutation of the counteradvocate claim "Many brilliant men have investigated the paranormal but they have yet to find a single person who can, without trickery, send or receive even a three-letter word under test conditions." can be found here: https://ia601200.us.archive.org/13/items/NotesonSpiritualismandPsychicalResearch/TheCaseOfIlga-k-Report-of-a-phenomenon-of-unusual-perception.pdf, here: https://ia601200.us.archive.org/13/items/NotesonSpiritualismandPsychicalResearch/DingwallanexperimentwiththepolishmediumstephanOssowieckijsprVolume21_pg260to264.pdf, and here: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101075888329;view=1up;seq=398 Aside from that, the New Republic censored my comments on the previous article [this is a defense of Sheldrake]. Here is the full text of them (information given here, if pursued, also highlights extreme problems on wikipedia with these subjects): http://tinypic.com/r/2h4m7mh/5 http://tinypic.com/r/10ndcgk/5 http://tinypic.com/r/29kvy9v/5 http://tinypic.com/r/15efpfn/5 http://tinypic.com/r/vb339/5 http://tinypic.com/r/2s76lar/5 This is what I wrote, as is shown by those pictures: I have been in correspondence with Rupert Sheldrake in light of the wikipedia controversy, gathering refutations of the Skeptical sources - I previously had a correspondence with him because he had trialogues with David Bohm and Krishnamurti, both of whom I am very interested in. Bohm thought Sheldrake's theory was compatible with his own: http://www.sheldrake.org/files/pdfs/A_New_Science_of_Life_Appx_B.pdf [and this is not quantum quackery, it is based on the observations of leading physicists - Hans-Peter Durr, in an attached document, also suggested a connection between Sheldrake's views and quantum physics, and that for him, "it is difficult to understand why modern biologists do not make more use of the revolutionary ideas of modern physics, seeing that the processes of life, as Sheldrake makes obvious, seem predestined to act as a bridge." - see the attached file. A defense of David Bohm against misrepresentations is provided in email correspondence with Basil Hiley that he gave me permission to attach, and which is also an attached file. Hiley has never expressed support for Sheldrake, but Bohm has, and so by extension, a vindication of Bohm vindicates Sheldrake, especially in light of the information of Vedral showing quantum effects applying to macro systems - all of this REFUTES Lewis Wolpert's assertion that Sheldrake's ideas are inconsistent with modern science] Sheldrake has since updated his reply to Richard Wiseman - http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/wiseman_claim.html with a link (from the bottom of that page) to his response to Wiseman's 2011 paper http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/Jaytee_experiments.html In a similar vein, he has updated his reply to Robert Todd Carroll: http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/carroll_response.html Likewise, Sheldrake rebutted Coyne's arguments against the TedX talk in commentary here (notice that they retracted their accusations against him): http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/ And PZ Myers' criticisms are really just an appeal to incredulity, like the one in light of the TedX talk, other criticism from him is addressed in the article "The Anti-Sheldrake Phenomenon": http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles%26Papers/articles/Dace_Anti-SheldrakePhenomenon.html [And regarding Susan Blackmore's statement: "I was involved in the furore near the beginning and this is exactly what happened. New Scientist said that, if true, this theory would be extremely important, and in 1982 put out a competition for experiments to test it. Richard Gentle won with an idea using Turkish nursery rhymes and I came second with a proposal involving babies' behaviour. Sheldrake himself designed experiments in which large numbers of people looked at ambiguous drawings, and hypothesised that the hidden image within them would become easier to see. I was one of the experimenters who took these drawings to a large conference and showed them to hundreds of people, and then helped Sheldrake with the statistical analysis. This analysis was far from clear-cut and the results did not, in my opinion, support the theory.": http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/04/morphic-paranormal-science-sheldrake This doesn't address the entirety of the issue. New Scientist did indeed run a competition. There was another competition for other tests run by an American Foundation, The Tarrytown Foundation, and a further contest for experiments by students run by the Institute of Noetic Sciences. All came up with very interesting and generally positive results. These are described in "The Presence of the Past", UK edition, (2011, Icon Books, London), beginning at p. 277. In relation to the ambiguous image test, this involved showing an image on TV in one country and testing people in others, with a control image. There were 3 experiments of this type, as described in the Appendix to A New Science of Life/Morphic Resonance. In experiments of this type, carried out on TV in Britain - on ITV first, and then on BBC "Tomorrow's world" the results were significantly positive, as described in the Appendix to the 3rd edition of "A New Science of Life" (Morphic Resonance in the US, pp. 283-293) - available online here: http://www.sheldrake.org/Research/morphic/AppxA%20Morphic%20New.PDF Blackmore was a part of the third test, involving German TV, according to Rupert Sheldrake in email correspondence on Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 9:01 AM, PST. The first experiment, done in Britain, gave a significant positive result and was described in New Scientist: - Sheldrake, Rupert. "Formative Causation: The Hypothesis Supported," New Scientist, 1983 - cited here: http://tinyurl.com/kfjs3my In the second experiment, on BBC TV, the results were positive in Europe but not in America. In a third experiment, the pictures were shown on TV in Germany and people were tested in Britain. The result showed a significant decline. From the skeptical point of view, there should have been no change. According to Rupert, "nobody expected a decrease" (see p. 286 of the Appendix provided). Sheldrake did not claim the results of these experiments were clear cut and supported the theory. What he said in the Appendix is that the findings were puzzling. And regarding Susan Blackmore - there is a statement on the internet that I will track down: "I am glad to be able to agree with his final conclusion--"that drawing any conclusion, positive or negative, about the reality of psi that are based on the Blackmore psi experiments must be considered unwarranted". Susan Blackmore's reply to Rick Berger's critical examination of her psi experiments. (Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, vol.83 , April 1989, p. 152) I have no reason to doubt the validity of that statement, but the paper critiquing her is here: http://archived.parapsych.org/psiexplorer/blackmore_critique.htm Yet she persists with her publicity campaign as if she found solid negative evidence.] The interpretations of people like Wiseman and Carroll, and even Myers and Coyne, are disputable, a person can understand where they are coming from, even if their argument can be challenged. On the other hand, some of Sheldrake's other critics are intellectually dishonest, engaging in fabrications. For example: The idea that Sheldrake's hypothesis is unfalsifiable is based on Michael Shermer's article "Rupert's Resonance", which is misleading - see the section of Sheldrake's reply beginning with "I have never claimed that “skeptics damped the morphic field”.": http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/shermer.html [another "pseudoscience" assertion, given by Maddox, which is less pernicious, is controverted by the Nobel Leaureate Brian Josephson - see the relevant above attached document] One item people like to use to attack Sheldrake is this article in a book by Alcock making an erroneous criticism of Sheldrake’s experimental methodology particularly with regards to phantom limbs: http://books.google.com/books?id=JyfbUvuJbbYC&pg=PA231#v=onepage&q&f=false This article, which is a copy of the article “Brugger P, Taylor KI. ESP: Extrasensory perception or effect of subjective probability? Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 10, Numbers 6-7, 2003 , pp. 221-246″: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2003/00000010/f0020006/art00012 is so untrue and defamatory that JCS published an official retraction in the next issue of the journal. From p.2 of JCS Volume 10, no 11 (2003), we find that “The article ‘ESP’ by P. Brugger and K.I. Taylor, published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol. 10, Number 6-7, pp. 221-246, erroneously states that an experiment with a flawed design (using ‘made up’ random numbers instead of a true random sequence) was performed by Rupert Sheldrake (p. 231) In actuality, Sheldrake was reporting the results of an experiment done by amateurs which had been sent to him. He himself identified the above flaw in the text of his descriptions, and it is his criticism of this work that is quoted by Brugger & Taylor (p. 231). We apologize to Dr. Sheldrake for this error.” - see facsimile here: https://ia601001.us.archive.org/18/items/Rupert_201309/JcsApology.10.112003.jpeg Other information put forward by some skeptics is in bad faith and is inaccurate - e.g. - they minimize his credentials, when he was indeed a research fellow of the Royal Society, as is supported here: http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/papers/RSR/index.html I attempted to edit the Wikipedia article in such a way to show that criticism of Sheldrake has been challenged, but this was removed because it was "bold" and in challenge to the undue weight policy, and because I was banned from Wikipedia for previously persisting with edits in an unrelated article that were in opposition to the undue weight policy (though in that case I was merely trying to get an article to accurately reflect the content of two WP:MEDRS compliant reviews): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rupert_Sheldrake&diff=578041997&oldid=578031147 Wikipedia is not a reliable source, for reasons I show here, in a long comments thread exposing errors with the people proped up as authorities on that site: http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2014/04/feeling-future-meta-analysis.html?showComment=1409364697256#c9144565193386588883 (some of my early observations on this are provided here: http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2013/04/show-me-evidence.html?showComment=1386267603458#c9012372150767499963) There is also some vindication of the author of the site I am commenting on, and there really is no legitimate grounds for the attack on him. Much of it is refuted here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dean_Radin&diff=580843185&oldid=580842904 - however, in the comments threads there is further corroboration regarding details not addressed in that edit. Beyond that, I have written a defense of this field here: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Parapsychology/Sources/Steigmann I personally consider many editors in wikipedia and affiliated groups to be members of a hate group, since they cyberbully their opponents, as is extensively documented here: http://wikipediawehaveaproblem.com/ And their bias is out of line, considering the following statement made buy an editor on the page of an administrator who notoriously censors positive nutritional medicine information: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:MastCell/Archive_43&diff=591918310&oldid=591918240#Some_questions_for_a_senior_wikipedian "As a senior Wikipedian supportive of the recent indefinite banning of a user for defending what appears to be Wikipedia core values, I would like to ask you a few specific questions, and I would be very grateful for some specific answers. 1. Is Wikipedia primarily supposed to reflect: a) what reliable sources say; or b) can multiple reliable sources be overridden by a few editors’ opinions? 2. If the answer to the above question is (b), then should this not be made much clearer in policy etc, because as things stand they give the impression that Wikipedia should primarily be a reflection of what reliable sources say? 3. If the answer to the first question is (a), then why is it inappropriate to say, for example, that “Sheldrake’s work has received a small degree of support from academics” in light of the following sources which are a sample of sources supporting/showing both the fact of, and the content of, some of Sheldrake’s academic support? Sources stating there has been support for Sheldrake within academia: Sources stating there has been support for Sheldrake within academia: David F. Haight, [https://www.plymouth.edu/department/history-philosophy/faculty/philosophy/david-f-haight/] Professor of Philosophy at Plymouth State University writing in The Scandal of Reason, published by the University Press of America says, “that Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields have been taken seriously by more physicists than biologists is to be expected.” [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OVfkYebOeAoC&pg=PA375&lpg=PA375&dq=sheldrake+%22physicists+than+biologists%22&source=bl&ots=OubshwLGiS&sig=FSTSaixT1o5l5yjnsGlMjvvoRfk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PcmhUvqTGsyAhAes9YHIAg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=%22that%20sheldrake's%20morphogenetic%20fields%22&f=true] Bryan Appleyard, writing in the Sunday Times (a source already used in the article) says “Morphic resonance is widely derided and narrowly supported”.[http://bryanappleyard.com/rupert-sheldrake-alternative-science/] Adam Lucas, [https://uow.academia.edu/AdamLucas] writing in 21.C says that “of all the scientific journals, New Scientist has undoubtedly been the most supportive of Sheldrake, having published a number of sympathetic articles on formative causation over the years." And this: "when he has not been ignored, however, Sheldrake's peers have expressed everything from outraged condemnation to the highest praise." But are these sources true? Yes, as it happens, here are some scientists and academics who have supported Sheldrake’s work: Nobel Laureate in Physics Brian David Josephson writing in Nature.[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v293/n5833/pdf/293594b0.pdf] Marc Bekoff, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder writing in Psychology Today.[http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201311/why-dogs-hump-and-rupert-sheldrakes-morphogenic-fields] Menas Kafatos, the Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor of Computational Physics and the Director of the Center of Excellence at Chapman University – Huffington Post [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/dear-ted-is-it-bad-scienc_b_3104049.html] Stuart Hameroff Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychology, Director, Center for Consciousness Studies, The University of Arizona – Huffington Post [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/dear-ted-is-it-bad-scienc_b_3104049.html] Rudolph E. Tanzi,[http://dms.hms.harvard.edu/neuroscience/fac/tanzi.php] Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital – Huffington Post [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/dear-ted-is-it-bad-scienc_b_3104049.html] Neil Theise,[https://www.einstein.yu.edu/faculty/9625/neil-theise/] Professor, Pathology and Medicine, (Division of Digestive Diseases) Beth Israel Medical Center - Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York – Huffington Post [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/dear-ted-is-it-bad-scienc_b_3104049.html] All four of the above wrote a letter, published in the Huffington Post supporting the scientific content of Sheldrake’s TEDx talk (which included a discussion of morphic resonance) and about which they say "there was not a hint of bad science in it". Hameroff also said that Sheldrake’s work could be accounted for by his own theory of consciousness developed in association with Roger Penrose [for an overview of the Penrose-Hameroff ORCH-OR model by Hameroff, referencing refutations of critics like Max Tegmark, see the following Google Tech Talks presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXFFbxoHp3s - for recent discoveries supporting that model, see the article "Discovery of quantum vibrations in 'microtubules' inside brain neurons supports controversial theory of consciousness ": http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140116085105.htm] Further scientific/academic support for Sheldrake. David Bohm FRS, who collaborated with Sheldrake on connection between his implicate order and Sheldrake’s morphic resonance with a dialogue published in the peer-reviewed journal ReVision Hans-Peter Durr Physicist, who wrote about Sheldrake’s work in connection with quantum Physics Theodore Roszak Professor Emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay writing in New Scientist [http://www.newscientist.com/data/doc/teaser/blog/201106/nsreview.pdf] Mary Midgley writing in the Guardian [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/27/science-delusion-rupert-sheldrake-review] Paul Davies Physics professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science John Gribbin Atrophysicist [sic], and a visiting fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex A final point One other similar area where the sources are overwhelming concerns the well known (and extraordinarily well-sourced) fact that Sheldrake is a biologist - a fact which his [sic] constantly removed. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rupert_Sheldrake&diff=585598391&oldid=585576635] contra BLP and clear Wikipedia precedence. If needed I can provide 100 reliable sources for this from every conceivable type of source/individual/institution. Here are four from the New York Times alone which, I believe, are not included in the more than 25 currently cited on talk. [http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/07/style/mirror-mirror-sit-roll-over-strike-a-pose-the-dog-as-fashion-plate.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm] [http://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/25/books/heretics-and-the-priesthood.html] [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/science/14maddox.html?_r=3&ref=science&pagewanted=all&] [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/18/national/18beliefs.html] Again, then, I would be grateful if you could answer the specific questions above in relation to this particular content. I eagerly await your response. Thanks Barleybannocks (talk) 12:37, 19 December 2013 (UTC)" What follows provides support for Sheldrake's hypothesis, and refutes counter-arguments: Victor Stenger attempts to attack David Bohm in "Quantum Gods", claiming to cite the book "Undivided Universe" in his attack (p. 127): http://books.google.com/books?id=1UwaiVz7ZlwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=victor+stenger&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2g-tUIHuL6iMiAKvpYCwAg&ved=0CEsQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=undivided%20universe&f=false But his very argument is refuted on p. 130 of "Undivided Universe", a book that Stenger claims to cite, but misrepresents: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZBXVnLtbphEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+undivided+universe&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dUWtUI-QAcWEjALIh4GACw&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=special%20relativity&f=false And by Aspect himself - he says "We must conclude that an entangled EPR photon pair is a non-separable object; that is, it is impossible to assign individual local properties (local physical reality) to each photon. In some sense, both photons keep in contact through space and time.": http://www.ece.rice.edu/~kono/ELEC565/Aspect_Nature.pdf And a major aspect of Stenger's view, reflected in his book, is refuted by a recent article by Zeilinger, “An experimental test of non-local realism”, as interpreted by Richard Conn Henry: http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html Richard Conn Henry has published in Nature on similar topics ("The mental Universe"), his views seem to be validated by the Zeilinger article, as interpreted above. Vlatko Vedral also challenges other aspects of Stenger's arguments (though he does not mention Stenger) - particularly, the allegation that quantum effects do not apply to macro systems - in the article "Living in a quantum world", where he says - "Although quantum effects may be harder to see in the macroworld, the reason has nothing to do with size per se but with the way that quantum systems interact with one another. Until the past decade, experimentalists had not confirmed that quantum behavior persists on a macroscopic scale. Today, however, they routinely do. These effects are more pervasive than anyone ever suspected. They may operate in the cells of our body.": http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=living-in-a-quantum-world In that vein, see the article "The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox in the Brain: The Transferred Potential": http://physicsessays.org/doi/abs/10.4006/1.3029159 The abstract reads: "Einstein‐Podolsky‐Rosen (EPR) correlations between human brains are studied to verify if the brain has a macroscopic quantum component. Pairs of subjects were allowed to interact and were then separated inside semisilent Faraday chambers 14.5 m apart when their EEG activity was registered. Only one subject of each pair was stimulated by 100 flashes. When the stimulated subject showed distinct evoked potentials, the nonstimulated subject showed “transferred potentials” similar to those evoked in the stimulated subject. Control subjects showed no such transferred potentials. The transferred potentials demonstrate brain‐to‐brain nonlocal EPR correlation between brains, supporting the brain's quantum nature at the macro level." What I have just written provides a basis for the argument put forth in the article "Unbroken Wholeness: The Emerging View of Human Interconnection", that can be thought of as corroboration for an aspect of Sheldrake's arguments: http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2812%2900219-4/fulltext Incidentally, for other aspects, Ben Goertzel has written on the fact that the physicist Lee Smolin has independently come upon a Quantum physics argument - the "Principle of precedence" - that mirrors the hypothesis of Sheldrake: http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2013/06/physicist-lee-smolin-rediscovers.html He quotes an interview given to Smolin where Smolin says "nature is developing habits as it goes along." [and this phenomenon of convergence, where two notable theorists (Bohm and Smolin) come to conclusions that support Sheldrake, are themselves powerful indicators that Sheldrake is right] If we combine Vedral and Smolin [or Bohm, per the above dialogue], we get something that looks very much like Sheldrake, in spite of Sheldrake. We can see this in effect in the article “Adaptive state of mammalian cells and its nonseparability suggestive of a quantum system”, published in the journal “Scripta Medica”, the abstract of which states: “Established mammalian cells were assayed for their resistance to different selection conditions which had not been used against these cells before, including exposure to thioguanine, ethionine, high temperature and a protein-free, chemically defined culture medium. Single assays were negative, showing that the cell lines contained no spontaneous mutants, or that these were present in a number below detectable limits. To obtain such mutants, we designed experiments of mutant isolation by serial assays. The cells were kept growing without selection and, at each passage, cell samples were withdrawn and assayed for resistance in separate cultures. As a result, we found no mutants at the beginning, then a few and, finally, a great number. This was in conflict with the postulate of random occurrence of mutants and, furthermore, with their spontaneousness. On the contrary, the results provided evidence that mutants occurred as an appropriate response to selection pressure. The most amazing feature was that this response could be detected in cells growing without selection and never exposed to selection pressure before. If one tried to explain the adaptive response in terms of signals, the signals would have to travel from the exposed to the unexposed cultures. The results are instead discussed in terms of adaptive states and the nonseparability of cellular states due to quantum entanglement of cells, in particular daughter cells, distributed between the exposed and unexposed cultures. Whatever the mechanism, we concluded that the finding of resistant cells in growing unexposed cultures, as a response to selective pressure on cells in physically separated cultures, tends to render meaningless any theory based on the spontaneous origin of mutants.”: http://www.med.muni.cz/biomedjournal/pdf/2000/04/211-222.pdf Bohm wrote, in "Undivided Universe", “All of this [quantum interconnectedness] implies a thoroughgoing wholeness, in which mental and physical sides participate very closely in each other. Likewise, intellect, emotion, and the whole state of the body are in a similar flux of fundamental participation. Thus, there is no real division between mind and matter, psyche and soma. The common term psychosomatic is in this way seen to be misleading, as it suggests the Cartesian notion of two distinct substances in some kind of interaction. Extending this view that you cannot separate the observer from the observed, we see that each human being similarly participates in an inseparable way in society and the planet as a whole. What may be suggested further is that such participation goes on to a greater collective mind, and perhaps ultimately to some yet more comprehensive mind, in principle capable of going indefinitely beyond even the human species as a whole.” ("The Undivided Universe", p. 323: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZBXVnLtbphEC&pg=PA323&lpg=PA323&dq=%E2%80%9CAll+of+this+implies+a+thoroughgoing%22&source=bl&ots=AnaQ1ctL9T&sig=voZgOm43pInyWDG4GgRKzgUn0gI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=B_XLUvbMOoTqoASMr4C4Cw&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CAll%20of%20this%20implies%20a%20thoroughgoing%22&f=false) In that vein, it may be useful to consider the "mental" aspects of morphic resonance as well. For this, see the article "Evidence of Collective Memory: a test of Sheldrake's theory", published in the Journal of Analytical Psychology: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3804853 - the article can be read here: https://ia601001.us.archive.org/18/items/Rupert_201309/Evidence%20of%20Collective%20Memory.pdf The conclusion notes that "The presence of collective memory was tested by having three groups of students learn the morse code, which had been previously learned by a large number of people, and a novel code that had never been learned by others and was constructed to be of equal intrinsic difficulty. As predicted, the Morse code was initially easier to learn, and the Novel code itself became easier over the three groups. The results confirm Sheldrake's theory and lend credibility to Jung's concepts of the archetype and the collective unconscious while suggesting that the ladder contains much more than archetypal memories."