Cif belief

A book for ignoring

Sheldrake persists in his claims, despite the fact that there's no evidence for them. This is bad science
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The question: Where does science end and 'magic' begin?

In Ian McEwan's terrific novel Enduring Love there is a description of a short report from 1904, which tells of how a dog vacates his master's favourite chair upon instruction, only to trick his master to get up again so the mutt could sneak back on to the warm seat. The narrator, a science journalist no less, makes no reference to how shaggy the dog was, but this anthropomorphic tale obviously does not stand up to modern scientific scrutiny. What rag published this nonsense? The journal Nature, that pillar of the scientific establishment (and my employer).

The anecdote was a jokey attempt to address reason in animals. It's fun, but there's no way to describe this other than bad science. By modern standards, it has no acceptable measures of veracity that satisfy scientific norms. Nowadays, the gold standard of scrutiny is "peer review". Work submitted to a journal is sent out anonymously to experts in the same field to comment, criticise and recommend for publication (or otherwise). Although this process developed much later than 1904 into the cast iron benchmark that it is today, it might amuse you to know that the most famous discovery of the 20th Century – the structure of DNA (pdf) by Watson and Crick in 1953 – was published, also in Nature, without peer review. This, I can assure you, could not happen today.

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.

Jung gave us a pleasant maxim which sceptics should always bear in mind: "I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud". Indeed, speculation is a key part of formulating an hypothesis, which then can be tested to destruction. Much of Sheldrake's work can be explained with just a bit more rigour than he employs. Many have applied robust scientific analysis to Sheldrake's experiments and found them to be fatally flawed. Michael Shermer described a catalogue of obvious experimental flaws in Sheldrake's work on perception of staring. If Shermer is correct, then these studies would not have made it through even the gentlest peer review. A good scientist moves on from repeated failure. Sheldrake's persistence suggests that he is not a good scientist.

Former Nature editor John Maddox questioned (and then rejected) the notion of burning "A New Science of Life". This firebrand comment backfired as it was seized upon by the publishers and repeated whenever they could. Maddox then reviewed second edition. His incendiary remark now adorns the new third edition, but I can tell you that Nature will not be reviewing it.

A book exists to be read, so a far, far worse punishment for Sheldrake's crimes against reason would be to simply ignore it. Incidentally, I recognise the irony in writing an article suggesting we should deny him the oxygen of publicity. Nevertheless, here's my final word: don't read this book, it will make you stupider.

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