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How Morphic Fields Work? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: If you've ever been at home and wondered, Josh and Chuck,
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Speaker 1: You can get all ticket information at s y s
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Speaker 1: K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff you should know,
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Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
0:41
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles
0:45
Speaker 1: w Chuck Bryan over there, and there's guest producer Dylan
0:48
Speaker 1: sitting in this fine Wednesday morning of weirdness. Everything's out
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Speaker 1: of whack and strange. I know, right, Hopefully our voices
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Speaker 1: sound normal, Chuck. I was worried about that so out,
1:01
Speaker 1: not that anyone cares, but our regular Tuesday sesh got
1:06
Speaker 1: pushed because our computer took a dump technical difficulties, and
1:10
Speaker 1: then we said, hey, let's just do it tomorrow morning.
1:13
Speaker 1: I had a few more technical difficulties, but here we
1:15
Speaker 1: are going strong. Buddy, I'm tired, are you No? I'm okay.
1:21
Speaker 1: I've had enough coffee that I'm not tired. It's weird
1:23
Speaker 1: for us to record in the morning and just everything's
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Speaker 1: out of whack. I would call it eerie, I think,
1:28
Speaker 1: because you know, I do the movie Crush Mini Crushes
1:32
Speaker 1: on Wednesday mornings usually, So usually I'm just making dumb
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Speaker 1: jokes and cussing a lot with nol. Right now, right,
1:40
Speaker 1: I gotta switch my brain back into g rated mode.
1:44
Speaker 1: Yep to talk about Rupert Childrake. That's what we're doing.
1:48
Speaker 1: And you can curse if you want. We'll beep it
1:51
Speaker 1: out Childrake, depending on Yeah. I think that's how the
1:55
Speaker 1: scientific community refers to That's just one of those names.
1:58
Speaker 1: It seems like it should be yelled at like that.
2:00
Speaker 1: And I like to call him Rupert after Michael Caine
2:05
Speaker 1: in Um Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Remember he called Steve Martin's
2:11
Speaker 1: name at one point was Rupert. There's a Cork on
2:13
Speaker 1: the Fork. Yeah, man, that was a good movie. It
2:17
Speaker 1: was so um we're talking about a different Ruprit or
2:20
Speaker 1: rupert Rupert Shel Drake, who is widely considered in the
2:24
Speaker 1: scientific community um, a heretic, fraud hoaxter, a pseudo scientist,
2:32
Speaker 1: all sorts of things. And normally we don't entertain um
2:36
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, or specifically people who are considered
2:39
Speaker 1: as such, because we tend to be like, yeah, pseudo
2:42
Speaker 1: science is not so great. But there's something about Rupert
2:46
Speaker 1: shell Drake is that maybe a little bit something like that.
2:52
Speaker 1: But he he is different in some ways. He kind
2:55
Speaker 1: of stands alone. He's got staying power, to say the least.
2:58
Speaker 1: He was first branded as sign antific heretic in and
3:02
Speaker 1: he's still around doing his thing, ticking off the scientific establishment. Um.
3:08
Speaker 1: But see, he's also in certain circles labeled as an
3:12
Speaker 1: open minded scientist and someone not afraid to kind of
3:17
Speaker 1: question the unquestionable, and someone who flies in the face
3:22
Speaker 1: of what some people call the scientific orthodoxy or dogma
3:29
Speaker 1: where everything is so rigid that there is no room
3:32
Speaker 1: for new ideas. Right that that basically the scientific orthodoxy
3:39
Speaker 1: that you refer to. It kind of says we are
3:42
Speaker 1: on basically the right track. We generally have the parameters
3:48
Speaker 1: kind of figured out. We know the math we need
3:51
Speaker 1: to be using. We know the places we need to
3:53
Speaker 1: be looking. We have generally and everything from physics to
3:56
Speaker 1: biology and understanding of the general structure. Now it's just
4:00
Speaker 1: a matter of filling in the details. We looked under
4:03
Speaker 1: the hood, uh huh, and we know what's going on generally.
4:07
Speaker 1: We know that it's a combustion engine and not an
4:09
Speaker 1: electric car. That the universe is that kind of thing
4:13
Speaker 1: electric car, right, So when somebody comes along and says, no, no,
4:17
Speaker 1: that's not even a car that you're looking at, that's
4:19
Speaker 1: a boat. Um. The scientific establishment or really any establishment,
4:25
Speaker 1: really tends to get shook by that kind of stuff.
4:27
Speaker 1: They don't like that. And one of the reasons I
4:30
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out why people get so invested
4:32
Speaker 1: in this. I think there's a lot of people who
4:34
Speaker 1: come and say, I am a person of science, I
4:37
Speaker 1: believe in this, I subscribe to it, and they end
4:40
Speaker 1: up going so far as to pin their identity to it.
4:43
Speaker 1: And this happens with just about any any structure. And
4:45
Speaker 1: when you pin your identity to something, when that when
4:48
Speaker 1: that's something that structure is attacked, you take it as
4:52
Speaker 1: a personal attack. And I think that that's one of
4:54
Speaker 1: the reasons why a lot of people are so rapidly
4:56
Speaker 1: against Rupert Sheldrake. So should we talk about this guy.
5:01
Speaker 1: I think we should. I think Chuck, we should explain.
5:03
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why he has such staying power
5:06
Speaker 1: and what makes them different is that he is about
5:08
Speaker 1: as trained as scientist as a scientist can be. Yeah,
5:12
Speaker 1: And you know, as we move through this, you'll see
5:14
Speaker 1: that what makes him stand out from kind of other
5:17
Speaker 1: uh kus is that he's very very intelligent guy. He's
5:22
Speaker 1: he's not a kook. No, So that's why it's kind
5:25
Speaker 1: of like, that's why certain people listen to him. One
5:27
Speaker 1: of the other things I really want to point out
5:29
Speaker 1: at the start of this, and this is what really
5:31
Speaker 1: differentiates him from a lot of people on the fringes today,
5:35
Speaker 1: is he's not in a hole. He's very polite, he's
5:38
Speaker 1: very calm, he's very measured. He doesn't engage in ad
5:41
Speaker 1: hominum attacks against his critics. He engages with his critics.
5:45
Speaker 1: He is he's actually a very congenial person. Yeah, he's
5:49
Speaker 1: just on a different side of the coin from the
5:52
Speaker 1: scientific establishment and almost every respect. Yeah. And when I've
5:56
Speaker 1: read articles and interviews with other people from the established
6:00
Speaker 1: mit that have hung out with him and done experiments.
6:02
Speaker 1: They're all like, he's a really affable kind of fun guy,
6:05
Speaker 1: even though when you look at him and when you
6:08
Speaker 1: hear Rupert Sheldrake doesn't scream fun and affable. No, but
6:12
Speaker 1: he is. Yeah, he's got a lampshade on his head
6:15
Speaker 1: nine tenths at the time. Man, can you imagine the
6:18
Speaker 1: party the lab parties beer boney. Alright. So he started
6:24
Speaker 1: out his career um kind of right down the middle
6:27
Speaker 1: of science science wise. Went to Cambridge as an undergrad.
6:32
Speaker 1: He won a Botany prize. Uh there, the University Botany Prize.
6:36
Speaker 1: He then went to Harvard study philosophy, he studied the
6:39
Speaker 1: history of science, went back to Cambridge. Yeah, apparently he's
6:43
Speaker 1: just like a savant when it comes to science history.
6:47
Speaker 1: Went back to Cambridge, got his PhD in biochemistry, and
6:51
Speaker 1: then a post stock with the Royal Society, uh in
6:54
Speaker 1: plant development in the aging of cells. So I think
6:57
Speaker 1: that's unassailable, unimpeached bowl. It really isn't. Had he just
7:02
Speaker 1: kind of continued along this is largely in the seventies.
7:05
Speaker 1: Had he just kind of continued along this path um,
7:08
Speaker 1: he probably would have been a really widely respected although
7:12
Speaker 1: pretty obscure plant scientist or biologist of some sort. But
7:18
Speaker 1: one of the things that happened to him was he
7:20
Speaker 1: went to India and studied and lived at an ash
7:24
Speaker 1: room for about a year and a half and apparently
7:29
Speaker 1: smoked a lot of hashish while he was there. The
7:33
Speaker 1: hashish part, Oh, I'm just goofing, but but surely he did.
7:38
Speaker 1: But the thing is is, around this time, UM he
7:41
Speaker 1: elaborated on an idea that he'd had that he learned about,
7:45
Speaker 1: probably in his history of science. UM the classes that
7:51
Speaker 1: science can't explain how you can take some cells that
7:56
Speaker 1: start out as like a seed or something like that,
7:59
Speaker 1: and that little seed grows into an oak tree, and
8:03
Speaker 1: that that oak tree looks startlingly similar to other oak
8:07
Speaker 1: trees that you know, you can dig up from a
8:10
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, or imagine that they'll basically look like
8:13
Speaker 1: a thousand years from now, or that are spread out
8:15
Speaker 1: on different continents. They can't science can't explain how um
8:21
Speaker 1: morphology works. That that how something becomes the thing that
8:25
Speaker 1: it is, and that that resembles something else. And you say, well,
8:28
Speaker 1: it's genetics, like that's kind of the common thing. But
8:31
Speaker 1: here we get to that point where science is like,
8:33
Speaker 1: we're we've got the broad strokes, we just don't understand
8:36
Speaker 1: the details. And and genetics can possibly be the thing
8:40
Speaker 1: that explains this later on, but we really have no
8:43
Speaker 1: idea how this stuff works because it's really really intricate
8:48
Speaker 1: how something like that happens. Yeah, it's almost like shell
8:51
Speaker 1: Drake was like, uh, Tom Hanks and Big in the
8:57
Speaker 1: in the boardroom when they're talking about the toys, and
9:00
Speaker 1: he's just like, I don't get it. Yeah, like because
9:03
Speaker 1: they'll say, oh, well it's d n A and he's like, yeah,
9:06
Speaker 1: but I don't get it. Like how does a toolip
9:07
Speaker 1: become the tulip? Well it's d n A, yeah, but
9:11
Speaker 1: that really doesn't explain at all. Well it's d n A.
9:13
Speaker 1: We understand d NA. He's like, yeah, I don't get it. Yeah.
9:17
Speaker 1: And to him specifically, DNA is a chemical that that
9:21
Speaker 1: um dictates how other chemicals are produced. Right, he thinks
9:25
Speaker 1: it's very overrated. He does um, which that in and
9:28
Speaker 1: of itself is heretical. But it's pretty funny too. But
9:31
Speaker 1: it is. But with with this, with morphology, with the
9:35
Speaker 1: how something takes the shape that it has eventually in
9:38
Speaker 1: it's a mature state. There's a lot going on there.
9:41
Speaker 1: There's like little cells that have to set up and
9:44
Speaker 1: arrange in a certain pattern that later on down the road,
9:47
Speaker 1: after all these processes play out, will form another pattern.
9:50
Speaker 1: So there's basically planning. There's um timing like all those
9:55
Speaker 1: that process has to happen at just the right steps
9:57
Speaker 1: and just the right stages for that end result to
9:59
Speaker 1: be it's supposed to be. There's differentiation of cells where
10:03
Speaker 1: one cell can produce a new cell and the new
10:05
Speaker 1: cell has totally different genes turned offer on that will
10:09
Speaker 1: allow it to specialize. And these are the things we
10:11
Speaker 1: don't understand what's guiding it. And so Rupert Sheldrake kind
10:15
Speaker 1: of tapped into a thought that started, I think back
10:18
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties among biologists that there must be
10:22
Speaker 1: some unseen guide or force that is that basically says
10:29
Speaker 1: I've got this, I know what the end result is.
10:32
Speaker 1: I can take the starting bit and guide it into
10:35
Speaker 1: this end result, and we don't understand what that is. Yeah,
10:39
Speaker 1: there were a couple of scientists in the twenties and
10:42
Speaker 1: thirties studying what they called uh morpha genetic fields, which
10:49
Speaker 1: is sort of like the idea that there's this invisible
10:52
Speaker 1: mold that we don't fully understand that gives the shape
10:55
Speaker 1: to these things. Uh. Guy named C. H. Waddington in
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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six had a paper called morphogenesis and the
11:03
Speaker 1: field concept, and then a Russian biologist named Alexander gurvitz
11:09
Speaker 1: Um kind of had the same thoughts. But you know,
11:11
Speaker 1: I think he came independently to these thoughts, yeah, which was, Hey,
11:15
Speaker 1: there's something else going on here. We're calling it morpha
11:18
Speaker 1: genetic fields. Uh. And this is this, like I said,
11:22
Speaker 1: this idea that there these invisible molds that we don't
11:25
Speaker 1: fully get that gives things their eventual shape and that's
11:29
Speaker 1: why they all look alike. Right. So so on the
11:32
Speaker 1: astroom in the late seventies early eighties, Childrake was kind
11:35
Speaker 1: of vibeing on this idea of there must be some
11:39
Speaker 1: some some field, these morphic fields or whatever that guide
11:43
Speaker 1: the development of something living into its mature form because
11:49
Speaker 1: we just don't understand it. So hey, maybe that's just
11:52
Speaker 1: as good an explanation as our current understanding, which is
11:55
Speaker 1: really nonexistent. So um. He took it further though, and
12:01
Speaker 1: he wrote a book and he took it further, he
12:03
Speaker 1: wrote a book called A New Science of Life. It
12:06
Speaker 1: was his first book, um, as far as I know,
12:08
Speaker 1: at the very least, it was his first book that
12:09
Speaker 1: really kind of made a splash. And in it, um
12:13
Speaker 1: he he kind of said, these these morpha genetic fields,
12:15
Speaker 1: we're gonna call him morphic fields now. And not only
12:18
Speaker 1: do they they guide the morpha genesis of a living thing,
12:23
Speaker 1: they guide its behavior from from that moment on, from
12:28
Speaker 1: the moment of conception onto I guess it's death. And
12:31
Speaker 1: then when that thing dies, the life that it's led
12:35
Speaker 1: will contribute to this morphic resonance that carries on to
12:39
Speaker 1: the next generation and the generation beyond that. And so
12:42
Speaker 1: you eventually have this long line of tulips that know
12:46
Speaker 1: not only how to grow into the right shape, but
12:49
Speaker 1: how to behave and do all the things that tulips
12:51
Speaker 1: do because of all of the living tulips that came
12:56
Speaker 1: before it through this process of morphic residence. Yeah, and
13:00
Speaker 1: not just like, uh, that tulip growing nearby at the
13:04
Speaker 1: same time, but he said, what if it just was
13:08
Speaker 1: across all of space and time, and the tulip in
13:11
Speaker 1: Africa in the nineteenth century is has informed the tulip
13:17
Speaker 1: in Florida in the year how to grow right, and
13:20
Speaker 1: everyone went oh good hashish over there in India in
13:25
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, right, Sheldrake, Right, So um, yeah, Well
13:31
Speaker 1: we'll get to how it was received in a minute,
13:33
Speaker 1: but let's you want to take a break and then
13:34
Speaker 1: come back and kind of explain how how how he
13:37
Speaker 1: says it works a little more. Yeah, but I also
13:39
Speaker 1: think I totally spoiled how it was received. But that's okay,
13:42
Speaker 1: that's all right, man, all right, okay. So we're at
14:08
Speaker 1: the point where um Rupert Sheldrake has published his book
14:12
Speaker 1: A New Science of Life, and in it he's talking
14:15
Speaker 1: about this morphic residence that basically says, um, anything that
14:19
Speaker 1: self organizes, from a molecule to a giraffe, UM knows
14:26
Speaker 1: how to take the shape or is guided by a
14:28
Speaker 1: process that shapes it called morphic fields. But even more
14:32
Speaker 1: than that, its behavior, it's future behavior is shaped by
14:35
Speaker 1: these same morphic fields. All of the all of the
14:38
Speaker 1: things that the giraffes that came before it learned and
14:42
Speaker 1: new and saw and eight and figured out becomes this
14:47
Speaker 1: kind of body of consciousness that's passed along to every
14:50
Speaker 1: new giraffe that's born. Yeah, I think we should read
14:53
Speaker 1: this quote. Okay, there's a great interview in Scientific American. Uh,
14:57
Speaker 1: who was it? Was it? Who was it interviewing him? Like,
15:00
Speaker 1: can't remember now? Was it Rose? Now? I'm not sure
15:03
Speaker 1: it was. It was a contemporary who was more you know,
15:08
Speaker 1: traditional mainstream science. But he again was like the Celdric guy,
15:12
Speaker 1: he's got something, He's got equality alright. So here's how
15:15
Speaker 1: Sheldrake himself answers the question of morphic residence. Morphic residence
15:20
Speaker 1: is the influence of previous structures of activity on subsequent
15:23
Speaker 1: similar structures of activity. Organized by morphic fields. It enables
15:28
Speaker 1: memories to pass across both the space and time from
15:31
Speaker 1: the past. The greater the similarity, the greater the influence
15:35
Speaker 1: of morphic resonance. What this means is that all self
15:37
Speaker 1: organizing systems like molecules, crystal cells, plants, animals, and animal
15:41
Speaker 1: societies have a collective memory on which each individual draws
15:46
Speaker 1: into which it contributes. And here's the key here, I
15:48
Speaker 1: think he says, in its most general sense, this hypothesis
15:52
Speaker 1: implies that the so called laws of nature are more
15:55
Speaker 1: like habits. Yet scientific establishment really particularly doesn't like that
16:00
Speaker 1: last bit right there. Yeah, shel Drake just uh called
16:04
Speaker 1: out the laws so called laws of nature. Right, So
16:08
Speaker 1: there's something in there that kind of stuck out to
16:10
Speaker 1: me that I was curious about. I couldn't find an
16:12
Speaker 1: answer to. Is that, Um, he says, the greater the similarity,
16:15
Speaker 1: the greater the influence of morphic residents. But what is
16:18
Speaker 1: the similarity, say, in like a giraffe embryo, that allows
16:23
Speaker 1: the morphic residents of all the giraffes that came before
16:26
Speaker 1: to be like this, this is the thing we need
16:27
Speaker 1: to exert our influence on. Like what similarity attracts that
16:31
Speaker 1: morphic residence. I took that to mean maybe not in
16:34
Speaker 1: the case of giraffes, but in the case of like
16:36
Speaker 1: different varieties of an orchid, like the more similar you know,
16:41
Speaker 1: because that's why they are all different ones. Yeah, But
16:44
Speaker 1: what is the initial similarity that that morphic field recognizes
16:49
Speaker 1: in that specific kind of orchid that says, Oh, I'm
16:52
Speaker 1: going to influence you. Or is it just we should
16:55
Speaker 1: call him it just naturally happens. I don't know, But
16:57
Speaker 1: these are the questions that you start to wonder about
17:00
Speaker 1: out when you read sheldrake stuff. Which is I think
17:02
Speaker 1: the reason why I like him. UM like he it
17:07
Speaker 1: just makes you think you just start to think differently
17:10
Speaker 1: than than just like it's it's d n A, Yeah,
17:13
Speaker 1: where are you with this guy? Overall, I am sympathetic
17:17
Speaker 1: to him because I admire that he has a tremendous
17:22
Speaker 1: amount of courage uh and willingness to take tons of
17:26
Speaker 1: flak and I'm sure in this day and age, lots
17:28
Speaker 1: of hate and threats. Um. I think that I am
17:34
Speaker 1: critical of the fact that he stopped publishing pure of
17:37
Speaker 1: view papers all the way back in the mid eighties.
17:40
Speaker 1: That makes him currently less of a scientist and more
17:44
Speaker 1: science communicator. But he's also kind of making up his
17:47
Speaker 1: own science too, so I don't know if he qualifies
17:49
Speaker 1: a science communicator, but I generally like him, and I
17:52
Speaker 1: appreciate the role that he um he plays in this
17:57
Speaker 1: this uh with science. What about you? I'm kind of
18:00
Speaker 1: with you there. I admire his his chutzpah um because
18:07
Speaker 1: I don't think that he is as charlatan out just
18:09
Speaker 1: to make money selling books like some people think. I
18:12
Speaker 1: don't either. I think he's a really smart guy who
18:14
Speaker 1: gave has given his whole life to deep, deep thought
18:18
Speaker 1: and research on this stuff, and I read some of
18:20
Speaker 1: it and I think he may be onto something. I
18:22
Speaker 1: read other stuff, and I think that sounds like magic,
18:25
Speaker 1: right right. Uh. And we are men of science, you know,
18:29
Speaker 1: we're we are podcasters, but we have always you know,
18:34
Speaker 1: roundly sided with the scientific method as sort of the baseline.
18:39
Speaker 1: And if you can't you can't satisfy the scientific method,
18:42
Speaker 1: then uh, we typically kind of pooh pooh it. But
18:45
Speaker 1: there's something again about the way he's gone about it
18:48
Speaker 1: that just doesn't seem like he's just some whacko out
18:51
Speaker 1: there making stuff up. Yeah, And I think he also
18:53
Speaker 1: kind of tunes into something that I dislike, which is,
18:56
Speaker 1: you know, he's really critical and really challenges, you know,
19:00
Speaker 1: hardened dogma of a lot of the scientific community where
19:04
Speaker 1: it's like, this is just how it is. Well why,
19:07
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I was taught that, but that's
19:09
Speaker 1: just how it is, and stop questioning it. And I'm
19:11
Speaker 1: really dislike that, and I like him that he challenges
19:15
Speaker 1: that as well. Yeah, there's a rigidity in science that
19:19
Speaker 1: turns us both off. I think, um so turned off
19:23
Speaker 1: right now. I was gonna make a joke, but I'm
19:27
Speaker 1: not going there. Because I'm in the mini crush mode.
19:30
Speaker 1: So right on, right on, keep it, keep it, keep
19:32
Speaker 1: it in all right. So let's let's look at a
19:35
Speaker 1: few examples of claims that he makes about uh things
19:40
Speaker 1: that he thinks morphi residents might explain in nature UM,
19:44
Speaker 1: specifically with animal behaviors. He says things like fish schooling UM, butterflies,
19:51
Speaker 1: monarchs flying thousands of miles to to uh the same place,
19:56
Speaker 1: homing pigeons, um, termites in Africa that are blind, that build,
20:01
Speaker 1: you know, a tin foot tall nest with ventilation structures.
20:05
Speaker 1: He said, all this stuff or more importantly, and we'll
20:07
Speaker 1: look at this a little closer in a minute. A
20:09
Speaker 1: dog and their owner, and a dog anticipating their owner's return,
20:14
Speaker 1: even though it might vary on what time that happens.
20:18
Speaker 1: Like the sense that the dog knows and is waiting
20:20
Speaker 1: by the door. He thinks that's all explained by morphic resonance. Yeah,
20:25
Speaker 1: and I mean like it, it's curious in that, you know,
20:28
Speaker 1: how does a how does a bee know after it
20:31
Speaker 1: makes that wax ring in a honeycomb? How does it
20:34
Speaker 1: no to to melt it into um a polygon shape
20:39
Speaker 1: rather than just a circle, or like those termites, Like
20:42
Speaker 1: why does a termite nest look almost identical to other
20:45
Speaker 1: termite nests? You know, yeah, exactly, Like there's there's a
20:49
Speaker 1: lot of behaviors that we can't quite explain that if
20:52
Speaker 1: you do kind of buy into this morphic grows in
20:54
Speaker 1: this idea, you could say, well, that's actually really really
20:57
Speaker 1: interesting now. And this is a real good criticism of
21:01
Speaker 1: morphic residents is you could also just as equally say
21:04
Speaker 1: magic or god or whatever. There's not that no one's
21:10
Speaker 1: proven that morphic resonance exists. This is just shel Drake saying,
21:14
Speaker 1: here's a good examples of what I'm talking about, this
21:17
Speaker 1: morphic resonance stuff. Yeah, and this is kind of important too.
21:20
Speaker 1: He talks about the fact that humans are not as
21:24
Speaker 1: sensitive to this because and this is where he kind
21:26
Speaker 1: of got me a little bit thinking. He says, we're
21:29
Speaker 1: so distracted by technology and we don't need collective memory
21:32
Speaker 1: of past humans to survive anymore. So that's why we're
21:36
Speaker 1: not that's why we can't really sense these fields. And
21:40
Speaker 1: I kind of disagree with that in some ways, Like
21:42
Speaker 1: I think, if if it does exist, it's still is
21:46
Speaker 1: it still survives in humans and things like think about
21:48
Speaker 1: how how um easily the average human can pick a
21:53
Speaker 1: snake out of the grass with with peripheral vision. Right,
21:57
Speaker 1: I wasn't raised around snakes. My parents didn't drummed in
22:00
Speaker 1: my into my head to be really wary of all snakes.
22:03
Speaker 1: And yet I'm a pro at picking a snake out
22:06
Speaker 1: in the grass with my peripheral Sure, And it's been
22:10
Speaker 1: shown that that people can like pick a gun out
22:13
Speaker 1: as quickly as they can't pick out snakes and spiders.
22:15
Speaker 1: And we're really good at picking out snakes and spiders
22:17
Speaker 1: in our environment. Um and uh that this would be
22:21
Speaker 1: a pretty good example of that, if you ask me.
22:23
Speaker 1: That is the most common descriptor I think when people
22:26
Speaker 1: say what's Josh like, I'm was like, he drinks a
22:29
Speaker 1: lot of beverages, coffee, water, you know, energy drinks. He Uh,
22:34
Speaker 1: he's a hard worker. And man, you should see that
22:36
Speaker 1: guy pick a snake out of his peripheral vision. It's uncanny.
22:40
Speaker 1: It makes a gunshot ricochet sound like. I don't go
22:43
Speaker 1: for a walk in the woods without him anymore. Sometimes
22:47
Speaker 1: you're nice and carry me on your back when I
22:49
Speaker 1: get tired. So, um, here's a couple of things with
22:54
Speaker 1: human morphic residents. That this is where it gets a
22:57
Speaker 1: little wacky to me. Um, he says. He claims that
23:02
Speaker 1: a crossword puzzle is easier to complete later in the
23:06
Speaker 1: day because of all the other people that had solved
23:09
Speaker 1: it earlier in the day, and they are broadcasting this
23:12
Speaker 1: morphick resonance out into the universe. I guess just their
23:17
Speaker 1: general awareness of the answers. That gets a little wacky
23:20
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, a little. The other one is not
23:23
Speaker 1: as wacky. Um. Is that feeling eyes in the back
23:26
Speaker 1: of your head like you're being stared at? That's a thing? Uh,
23:30
Speaker 1: he says, that's morphick fields. Yeah, that your morphic field
23:34
Speaker 1: extends beyond your head and that it's sensitive and is
23:39
Speaker 1: the first thing contacted by that person stare and it
23:42
Speaker 1: lets you know basically that you're being stared at. Yeah,
23:44
Speaker 1: this is very just he's going in the right direction.
23:48
Speaker 1: Then I hear that, and I'm think, oh boy, that
23:50
Speaker 1: is sounds a little wacky. I wrote another really good
23:52
Speaker 1: explanation for that. Um that it's a self fulfilling thing
23:56
Speaker 1: where you, um say, you're in the library to what
24:00
Speaker 1: over and you get the sense that you're being stared
24:01
Speaker 1: at by somebody at a table behind you, and when
24:04
Speaker 1: you start to turn around, the movement of your head
24:06
Speaker 1: look at a person's attention. Interesting And when you look,
24:09
Speaker 1: when you finally complete that turn, that person is looking
24:13
Speaker 1: at you. That makes sense, especially if you're like, oh,
24:16
Speaker 1: for God's sake, can you turn around right? Yeah, then
24:20
Speaker 1: they're definitely going to look the next time you turn
24:22
Speaker 1: to because they're keeping an eye on you, that's right,
24:24
Speaker 1: or they're just looking for snakes. So, Charles, Um, as
24:30
Speaker 1: you kind of said earlier, this has not all been
24:33
Speaker 1: very well received by the scientific community. They tend to
24:38
Speaker 1: think of it as hocum um. The fact that he
24:40
Speaker 1: doesn't publish peer of view papers anymore, and and said
24:43
Speaker 1: writes books directly to the to the public um. The
24:46
Speaker 1: fact that, uh, they claim that his stuff isn't false viable,
24:50
Speaker 1: but if you read his explanations and descriptions, he's like, no, actually,
24:53
Speaker 1: this all is false viable, And I try to run
24:56
Speaker 1: experiments all the time. Sometimes it comes back with positive results. Um.
25:00
Speaker 1: But they generally don't like the stuff that he's saying.
25:03
Speaker 1: And in particular, there was one guy who, looking back,
25:09
Speaker 1: made Rupert Sheldrake's career, and his name was Sir John
25:13
Speaker 1: Maddox and at the time that um, uh what it
25:18
Speaker 1: was that the Science the New Science of Life. When
25:22
Speaker 1: that book came out, Uh, Sir John Maddox happened to
25:25
Speaker 1: be the editor of the journal Nature. Nature and Science
25:29
Speaker 1: are the two most prestigious scientific, peer reviewed publications in
25:33
Speaker 1: the entire world. And this guy, right was the editor
25:38
Speaker 1: of that and he got his hands on the Science
25:40
Speaker 1: of a New Science of Life and wrote not just
25:44
Speaker 1: a book review, an editorial about this book from the
25:49
Speaker 1: editors of Nature, claiming that it was an infuriating tract
25:55
Speaker 1: and that it was the best candidate for burning there
25:58
Speaker 1: has been for many years. Yeah. Also this in an interview,
26:03
Speaker 1: he said, Chouldrake is putting forward magic instead of science
26:07
Speaker 1: and that can be condemned. And exactly the language that
26:10
Speaker 1: the Pope used to condemned Galileo for the same reason.
26:13
Speaker 1: It is heresy. Right, So if you were curious about
26:16
Speaker 1: how Sir John Maddox felt about the dogma of science,
26:20
Speaker 1: the fact that he used the word heresy kind of
26:22
Speaker 1: says it all right. And this is thirteen years after
26:25
Speaker 1: that first and he poked the Pope. Yeah, he was
26:28
Speaker 1: doubling down on this, and he didn't mention that it
26:30
Speaker 1: turned out Galileo was right, even though he positioned himself
26:33
Speaker 1: and science in the pope position in this one. The
26:37
Speaker 1: fact is he used the word burning. He he and
26:41
Speaker 1: his defenders later on we'll say like, no, he if
26:44
Speaker 1: you read the whole thing at the end, he says, no,
26:47
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be burning books. But he does say that
26:50
Speaker 1: there's hadn't been a better candidate for but if we
26:52
Speaker 1: were to be the first one on the pile, right,
26:56
Speaker 1: and so that you know, from that point on, Rupert
26:59
Speaker 1: Sheldrake's publishers are like, we'll be using that on the
27:02
Speaker 1: dust jacket of every addation of this from now on.
27:04
Speaker 1: And it made his career. He went from somebody who
27:07
Speaker 1: might have never been anybody to the premier heretic of
27:13
Speaker 1: science thanks to that dusty old crotch. Sir John Maddox, Yeah,
27:18
Speaker 1: here's dusty old crotch. Yeah. I'm not a big fan
27:21
Speaker 1: of him, man, or anybody who's suggests we should burn books.
27:25
Speaker 1: So here's another quote from another professor of biology at
27:29
Speaker 1: University College London, Lewis Walpert more Fick. Residents is rubbish.
27:33
Speaker 1: It is unmitigated junk and a great insult to the
27:37
Speaker 1: people who do real work in the field. Yeah. And
27:40
Speaker 1: I'm sure we could spend the next twenty minutes finding
27:42
Speaker 1: quotes like that, um about that book. Yeah, and and
27:46
Speaker 1: shel Drake's response has always been, um, I mean he'll
27:50
Speaker 1: go back at people, for sure, but not in a
27:53
Speaker 1: sort of a poopy pants way. Uh. He's basically is
27:57
Speaker 1: like and and you know, in any idea that doesn't
28:01
Speaker 1: conform to this religion of science is denounced. And he said,
28:04
Speaker 1: it's close minded. It's a close minded system. It goes
28:07
Speaker 1: against the nature of what science is, which should be
28:10
Speaker 1: discovery and investigating hypotheses. Uh. And the fact that they're
28:15
Speaker 1: valid until they're proven or disproven by experimenting. Uh So
28:20
Speaker 1: get off my back with your dusty crotch. And in fact, um,
28:24
Speaker 1: some some scientists in the field, are in a number
28:29
Speaker 1: of fields, have kind of come to shell Drake's defense,
28:34
Speaker 1: not so much that they've criticized John Maddox. I get
28:37
Speaker 1: the impression that you don't you don't criticize sir John
28:40
Speaker 1: unless the editor of Josh Clark. Right. Yeah, Well, I'm
28:44
Speaker 1: not a scientist. I've got no skin in this game.
28:47
Speaker 1: But um, they came to shel Drake's defense and that, Um,
28:51
Speaker 1: they said, Okay, if you're saying these are falsifiable, let's
28:54
Speaker 1: let's do some experimentation. Let's take let's take this to
28:57
Speaker 1: the to the point you're you're putting in at and
28:59
Speaker 1: let's let's apply the scientific method to this. Yeah, here,
29:02
Speaker 1: smoke this hash right. No, Sheldrick said that to them, like, okay,
29:06
Speaker 1: for the for the data to make sense, you got
29:08
Speaker 1: to smoke this first, that's right, And they went, oh, okay, right, yeah,
29:12
Speaker 1: I got it. But that's why everybody likes to hang
29:15
Speaker 1: out with him, Um, because he's got the good stuff, right,
29:19
Speaker 1: all right, So should we talk about, um a little
29:24
Speaker 1: bit about what he claims and what he's tried to prove. Yeah,
29:27
Speaker 1: because so again like he's he's run these experiments. But
29:30
Speaker 1: there have been I just want to say, there have
29:32
Speaker 1: been a few people who have come up and been like,
29:33
Speaker 1: you know, that was bs what sir John said. We
29:35
Speaker 1: shouldn't be burning books. I'm going to extend an olive
29:39
Speaker 1: branch on behalf of the scientific community, and and we're
29:42
Speaker 1: going to test some of these experiments. Yeah. So he
29:46
Speaker 1: drilled down on a few in a few different areas Um,
29:48
Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about. One is the one
29:50
Speaker 1: I talked about about humans being stared at. The other
29:54
Speaker 1: is the dogs anticipating their owners in return, right, basically
29:59
Speaker 1: human dog eelepathy right Uh. And then yeah, boy, as
30:03
Speaker 1: soon as that work telepathy is thrown out there, that's
30:05
Speaker 1: a science killer. Yeah. And that's a I mean, that's
30:09
Speaker 1: a big easy criticism of Sheldrig's ideas is that they
30:13
Speaker 1: they include telepathy. That the idea that we're tuned into
30:16
Speaker 1: this general body of conscious knowledge, that that was accumulated
30:20
Speaker 1: by all the living things that came before us, and
30:23
Speaker 1: that this exists outside of our minds and we can
30:26
Speaker 1: connect to it with our minds. That's telepathy. And yeah,
30:29
Speaker 1: there's no way to put it otherwise. Well in PSI
30:32
Speaker 1: in general, which we should probably do a podcast on
30:34
Speaker 1: at some point. Sure, I mean we've been chipping away
30:37
Speaker 1: at a little by little bit. Uh. And then the
30:40
Speaker 1: third one that that he kind of drilled down on
30:42
Speaker 1: was the idea that different that successive generations of lab
30:47
Speaker 1: rats can solve their little puzzles and problems faster and
30:51
Speaker 1: easier than generations before that is because of morphic residence. Yeah,
30:54
Speaker 1: and there's been data he's either carried out experiments himself
30:58
Speaker 1: where he's he's you know, pointed out to publish data
31:00
Speaker 1: before that has shown that. I think back in the thirties,
31:03
Speaker 1: there was a a I guess a biologist or a
31:08
Speaker 1: psychologist who was training matt or rats how to um
31:12
Speaker 1: run a maze. And he found, to his amazement that
31:17
Speaker 1: rats of successive generations over like thirty six generations did
31:21
Speaker 1: better initially on these mazes than their predecessors, which would
31:25
Speaker 1: suggest well a lot of things, but apparently controlled for
31:28
Speaker 1: genetics and environment, and said, it's possible that this is
31:33
Speaker 1: this is somehow being passed down from one generation to
31:35
Speaker 1: the next outside of jeans. So let's talk about the
31:39
Speaker 1: dog thing, because we have dogs, and we love to
31:41
Speaker 1: think that our dogs are little people, and that they
31:45
Speaker 1: sit by the door waiting on us and look out
31:48
Speaker 1: the window and are just sad until we get home. Uh.
31:52
Speaker 1: And so he did this experiment, and then later on
31:55
Speaker 1: did some more experiments with a partner um which will
32:00
Speaker 1: talk about here in a second. But he found a lady,
32:02
Speaker 1: a British woman who her name was Pam, and she
32:05
Speaker 1: had a dog named j t j y t E.
32:10
Speaker 1: And she said, hey, use me because I got this
32:13
Speaker 1: dog who waits by the window, uh, before I come home,
32:19
Speaker 1: no matter when I come home, So it doesn't matter
32:22
Speaker 1: if you come home with five or ten o'clock at
32:23
Speaker 1: night or three in the afternoon. This dog is by
32:26
Speaker 1: the window. So I think there's some telepathy going on.
32:30
Speaker 1: And Sheldrake said, well, step right up and let's see
32:33
Speaker 1: what's going on here. Yeah, And it wasn't just that
32:36
Speaker 1: her dog sits by the window the whole time she's gone.
32:38
Speaker 1: It's that people had noticed that would suddenly sit up,
32:43
Speaker 1: go to the window, and then within a few ten
32:45
Speaker 1: minutes or something like that, Pam would come home right
32:47
Speaker 1: and started singing True Colors by Cindy Lauper right, and
32:51
Speaker 1: she would come home at different times of the day
32:53
Speaker 1: like this is a pretty It was a remarkable thing.
32:55
Speaker 1: So um, apparently, over a hundred different tests, Sheldre found
33:00
Speaker 1: that eight four out of a hundred times this dog
33:05
Speaker 1: accurately predicted when Pam was coming home. And shel Drake's
33:08
Speaker 1: whole hypoth in eleven seconds. We well, people should understand
33:13
Speaker 1: not that this dog, here's the car pull in within
33:16
Speaker 1: eleven seconds of her leaving to go home, right, leaving
33:19
Speaker 1: her office I think miles away. And again this is
33:23
Speaker 1: at different times of day. Um. They apparently experimented so
33:27
Speaker 1: that she would come home in different kinds of cars,
33:29
Speaker 1: including taxis, so that the dog couldn't somehow like hear
33:33
Speaker 1: this this particular come of the of Pam's motor or
33:36
Speaker 1: something like that. Um. But he controlled for a lot
33:39
Speaker 1: of stuff. And this is something you got to understand
33:40
Speaker 1: about Rupert Sheldrake. He carries out scientific experiments, like under
33:45
Speaker 1: the scientific method. What people disagree with his interpretation of
33:49
Speaker 1: the data typically, but he controlled for all this different
33:53
Speaker 1: stuff and he found the eighty four times out of
33:55
Speaker 1: a hundred, UM j t accurately predicted roughly when UM
34:00
Speaker 1: Pam was going to come home by getting up and
34:02
Speaker 1: going to the window to wait for her. Right. Yeah,
34:04
Speaker 1: I think that first one, though, was not quite so scientific.
34:07
Speaker 1: Wasn't that the deal? This is why they redid it. No, No,
34:10
Speaker 1: they didn't redo it because it wasn't scientific. They redid
34:13
Speaker 1: it because one of his greatest critics, Richard Wiseman, who
34:16
Speaker 1: was a UM uh I think it's psychologist but also
34:20
Speaker 1: like a professional skeptic, UM said this is b s.
34:25
Speaker 1: But let's let's let me carry out let me replicate
34:28
Speaker 1: your experiment and see if I get the same results. Okay,
34:31
Speaker 1: because the he had an Austrian documentary crew and they
34:34
Speaker 1: said that the test wasn't scientific. Oh I'm sorry, right,
34:38
Speaker 1: they like they're they're filming. What they did was not scientific.
34:42
Speaker 1: But he had already previously carried out in private that. Yeah.
34:47
Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, the scientists do that all
34:49
Speaker 1: the time. I don't think that he's I don't think
34:52
Speaker 1: he has been accused of fudging his methodology. I think
34:58
Speaker 1: he's just roundly accused of cherry cherry picking data, or
35:03
Speaker 1: misinterpreting the data, or interpreting the data to suit as needs,
35:07
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But I don't get the impression
35:10
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are like this data on
35:12
Speaker 1: its at its cores hocum. All right, Well, Wiseman, like
35:15
Speaker 1: you said, noted skeptic, professional poopo or of things, experimental psychologist.
35:21
Speaker 1: He comes in and says, all right, let's do this together.
35:24
Speaker 1: He said, all right, this dog did not uh. In
35:28
Speaker 1: four different occasions or four different experiments, this dog failed,
35:32
Speaker 1: right uh. And this dog is going to the window
35:35
Speaker 1: a lot. He's a window hanger outer yeah, this dog
35:40
Speaker 1: loves that window. And so they said, all right, let's
35:43
Speaker 1: rule out some of these false positives and let's say,
35:46
Speaker 1: let's let's define what the real signal would be. That's
35:50
Speaker 1: if this dog stays at the window for two minutes,
35:52
Speaker 1: not just pops up to see if it's raining or
35:55
Speaker 1: to sing a stands of true colors, but really sits
35:58
Speaker 1: there for two minutes um, and then let's see what happens.
36:03
Speaker 1: They did that, and Wiseman said, uh, all right, and
36:07
Speaker 1: we all got to also say it's got to be
36:09
Speaker 1: within ten minutes of her leaving for from home, not
36:13
Speaker 1: eleven minutes, right, shaved off one minute. And in all
36:17
Speaker 1: four of these experiments, this dog gives a signal before
36:21
Speaker 1: that ten minute period, before she even started for home.
36:24
Speaker 1: So Wiseman said failed. So if you read shell Drake's
36:28
Speaker 1: rebuttal to Wiseman's findings, and Wiseman ran around not just
36:32
Speaker 1: saying failed, he like gave I think four different talks
36:35
Speaker 1: about this experiment, how like it was it didn't amount
36:38
Speaker 1: to anything um And so shell Drake responded to it
36:42
Speaker 1: and he was like, well, this two minute duration was
36:47
Speaker 1: an arbitrary signal that you came up with that wasn't
36:49
Speaker 1: part of my original methodology. And then also and I
36:53
Speaker 1: think all four of those experiments, right, maybe all four. Um,
36:57
Speaker 1: So the dog went to the window or lee and um.
37:01
Speaker 1: And then afterward if he went to the window again,
37:04
Speaker 1: which apparently he did to wait for Pam, that was
37:07
Speaker 1: thrown out because he'd already gone to the window before.
37:10
Speaker 1: He's like, well, I never said the dog only went
37:12
Speaker 1: to the window when Pam was coming home. I just
37:15
Speaker 1: said he would go to the window to wait for Pam. Um,
37:18
Speaker 1: you know, within some certain time frame of her leaving.
37:21
Speaker 1: And apparently the dog continued to do this, but it
37:23
Speaker 1: wasn't included in these tests because he had already gone
37:27
Speaker 1: to the window. So it's really detailed and you can
37:30
Speaker 1: read it yourself if you want to. But um, he
37:33
Speaker 1: has a good explanation for why Wiseman's interpretation of the
37:36
Speaker 1: data was you know, or his methodology was flawed. But
37:40
Speaker 1: it's all very civil like you were saying before. He's
37:43
Speaker 1: not like Wiseman's a moron who couldn't do science if
37:46
Speaker 1: it's sat on him and and caused him to stop
37:49
Speaker 1: respirating or anything like that. Yeah, And I think it's uh,
37:52
Speaker 1: the other thing, he because you know, the thing that
37:54
Speaker 1: Wiseman poop pood was the fact that the dog started
37:57
Speaker 1: this behavior before she started from home. And Sheldrike was like, hey,
38:02
Speaker 1: I think that further proves it, actually, because I think
38:05
Speaker 1: that Pam is sending signals before she starts for home
38:09
Speaker 1: that she didn't even realize, Like maybe she she gets
38:13
Speaker 1: her coat and goes to the restroom for a few
38:15
Speaker 1: minutes or something. Even well she was with the beginning
38:18
Speaker 1: of the going home process, yeah, or she was with
38:20
Speaker 1: Wiseman's assistant, and Wiseman's assistant was the one who knew
38:23
Speaker 1: what time they were going home, so she he said,
38:26
Speaker 1: maybe Pam was picking up on the guy looking at
38:28
Speaker 1: his watch or something like that and knew when she
38:30
Speaker 1: was going to go home. Anyway, Um, there's a lot
38:32
Speaker 1: of he has a lot of explanations for It's very
38:34
Speaker 1: interesting to kind of read the back and forth. But
38:37
Speaker 1: um so that so, but Wiseman won that one because
38:40
Speaker 1: everyone wanted Wiseman to win that one, and and I
38:43
Speaker 1: think that's kind of par for the course. For Sheldrake,
38:45
Speaker 1: He's like, well, no, here's all these other explanations for
38:48
Speaker 1: this interpretation, and people just kind of ignored unless you
38:52
Speaker 1: want to believe what Sheldrake has to say. Um, if
38:55
Speaker 1: you don't want to believe what Sheldrick has to say,
38:57
Speaker 1: people like Wiseman and other skeptics provide, you know, well
39:01
Speaker 1: here we carried at this experiment and now this is disproven. Right.
39:05
Speaker 1: Another guy who did that is a really um big
39:08
Speaker 1: critic of shell Drake. His name is Steven Rose. I
39:10
Speaker 1: think he's a no, I'm sorry, he's yeah. He's a
39:13
Speaker 1: biologist and a neuroscientist, Steven Rose, And um, he carried
39:17
Speaker 1: out another experiment about how chicks might be able to
39:20
Speaker 1: learn kind of like that lab rate experiment, how they
39:23
Speaker 1: successive generations learned, um, how to do amaze. Well, they
39:27
Speaker 1: did this with chicks, and they did this experiment together,
39:30
Speaker 1: and they had different interpretations of the data and it
39:32
Speaker 1: went back and forth and in different journals or whatever.
39:35
Speaker 1: But the fact is there are scientists out there, skeptics
39:38
Speaker 1: who are critics of shell Drake and his ideas and methods.
39:42
Speaker 1: But um still scientists that are willing to engage his ideas.
39:45
Speaker 1: And I think that that's healthy, even if they are
39:47
Speaker 1: coming at it from you know, the standpoint like this
39:50
Speaker 1: is bunk this is howcome they're still willing to go
39:52
Speaker 1: through with these experiments. And I respect that you want
39:57
Speaker 1: to take another break. Yes, all right, Chuck, We're going
40:00
Speaker 1: to take another break everybody, in case you didn't hear,
40:27
Speaker 1: all right. So Rose, uh, Stephen Rose. And this, this
40:31
Speaker 1: quote kind of really puts the nail on the head
40:35
Speaker 1: of the critics of shell Drake. Uh. And this actually
40:39
Speaker 1: is one that spoke to me because it's not it's
40:42
Speaker 1: not an attack on on shel Drake. It's more of
40:45
Speaker 1: a sympathetic view, which is this shell Drake is so
40:49
Speaker 1: committed to his hypotheses that it is very hard to
40:54
Speaker 1: envisage the circumstances in which he would accept its disconfirmation.
40:59
Speaker 1: So it's a very sweet way of saying, like, this
41:02
Speaker 1: guy really really believes this stuff so much that like,
41:06
Speaker 1: I don't think he is able to look at the
41:10
Speaker 1: data in a in a sort of level headed, unbiased way. Right. So,
41:15
Speaker 1: and that says at all. I mean, that's tough to
41:17
Speaker 1: to It's a very cutting criticism because how do you
41:25
Speaker 1: how do you show that's not true other than to
41:27
Speaker 1: say these are wrong. You know, you have to admit
41:32
Speaker 1: that your hypothesis is wrong. Um, to to get away,
41:37
Speaker 1: to get around that, and then once you've done that,
41:38
Speaker 1: you've just lost anyway. So it's a it's a tough,
41:43
Speaker 1: very it's a very shrewd criticism. Yeah. So Sheil Drake
41:46
Speaker 1: over the years has um, he's written a lot of books.
41:50
Speaker 1: He has been accused of. Um, he's been accused by
41:55
Speaker 1: some of like, hey, this guy is just out there
41:57
Speaker 1: writing books to make money, uh, and has sort of
42:00
Speaker 1: made himself the superstar of the altar side of science.
42:05
Speaker 1: That seems to be the biggest explanation for what he's
42:08
Speaker 1: why he's doing what he's doing that he found it easier,
42:11
Speaker 1: an easier and quicker path to fame and recognition and
42:15
Speaker 1: probably money writing these books about his own made up
42:18
Speaker 1: ideas rather than writing you know, academic papers like everybody else. Right,
42:23
Speaker 1: And on Sheldrake's side, he's like, listen this uh what
42:26
Speaker 1: he calls the default worldview of science and these dogmas. Um,
42:31
Speaker 1: he said they should be sort of pushback against. And um,
42:35
Speaker 1: what about questioned, Yeah, questioned, what about the Big Bang?
42:39
Speaker 1: He's like, everyone you know thinks they have it all
42:41
Speaker 1: figured out and all laws in the universal constant, well
42:45
Speaker 1: except for the Big Bang and then you know, we
42:47
Speaker 1: can't fully explain that and that There's another great quote
42:51
Speaker 1: from a philosopher named Terence McKenna is, give us one
42:56
Speaker 1: free miracle and we'll explain the rest, and you know
42:59
Speaker 1: when it comes, and things like the Big Bang. That
43:01
Speaker 1: kind of holds true. Yes, specifically with the Big Bang,
43:04
Speaker 1: I think is what he's talking about. That if you
43:05
Speaker 1: can just allow for their nothing, nothing that came before,
43:12
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, all the matter and energy
43:14
Speaker 1: in the universe, um, suddenly existed, then we can pretty
43:18
Speaker 1: much explain all other physics from that point on, or
43:21
Speaker 1: we can use that and um. And that's the big question,
43:24
Speaker 1: is what happened right before the Big Bang? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
43:27
Speaker 1: But we also have other questions about the universe, like
43:30
Speaker 1: is it inflating, you know, is there gonna be a
43:32
Speaker 1: big bang? Or is there going to be a big
43:34
Speaker 1: crunch or um. We have a lot of questions and
43:37
Speaker 1: a lot of misunderstanding about it too. But we physics
43:41
Speaker 1: needs the Big Bang to have happened the way that
43:44
Speaker 1: we think it might have happened. But even still, the
43:47
Speaker 1: way we think it might have happened doesn't follow the
43:50
Speaker 1: physical laws as we understand them, and so shell Drake
43:53
Speaker 1: and others point to that one and they're like, come on, guys,
43:56
Speaker 1: like this is just one of several examples of science
44:01
Speaker 1: just saying this is the way it is, even though
44:04
Speaker 1: we don't fully understand it or the data we're getting
44:06
Speaker 1: suggests otherwise. And oh man, how can I say this
44:11
Speaker 1: in a way that's not like controversial? There isn't one.
44:15
Speaker 1: It's not the same as when let's say a a
44:20
Speaker 1: creationist saying, well, you can't really explain the Big Bang, so, um,
44:27
Speaker 1: it's all magic, and that's okay, right right, you know
44:31
Speaker 1: it's not It's not along those same lines. There's something
44:34
Speaker 1: different about what Sheldrake is saying. I think what he's
44:37
Speaker 1: saying is, yeah, in some cases he's like, we don't
44:40
Speaker 1: understand this. So here's my interpretation. I think. In his
44:43
Speaker 1: more recent UM book, The Science Delusion, which came out
44:46
Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve in the US is called Science
44:48
Speaker 1: Set Free. Um, he's saying, here are some some essential
44:54
Speaker 1: dogmatic beliefs of science that are worth challenging, and that
44:58
Speaker 1: if we don't chan challenge them, we we might end
45:02
Speaker 1: up going down this wrong path of scientific inquiry. UM.
45:05
Speaker 1: And we need to be a little more free to
45:08
Speaker 1: differing ideas because we don't understand these things like everybody
45:12
Speaker 1: generally believes we do. Yeah, I think he kind of
45:16
Speaker 1: in the book title itself, he said in America's Science
45:18
Speaker 1: Set Free, that kind of encapsulates. I think he sees
45:22
Speaker 1: himself as as some kind of emancipator of science rather
45:27
Speaker 1: than um a kuk who believes in telepathy, right, even
45:32
Speaker 1: though he kind of I mean that stuff. And Dave
45:35
Speaker 1: Russ helped us with this, uh, with this research. Yeah,
45:38
Speaker 1: I did a great job he did. And you know,
45:40
Speaker 1: he points out, and he's right, morphic resonance sounds very
45:44
Speaker 1: strange and weird, you know, and it also sounds like
45:48
Speaker 1: something that would sell a book, right right. But to
45:51
Speaker 1: throw him in there, I think it's a Rose said
45:55
Speaker 1: he's basically no, no better than someone who endorses crop
45:59
Speaker 1: circles and create ationism and pseudoscience. Yeah, And I don't
46:03
Speaker 1: think that's necessarily fair. No, And even so, if you
46:07
Speaker 1: take away things like morphic resonance and things like um,
46:12
Speaker 1: uh well morphic residence basically, um, if you if you
46:15
Speaker 1: take that stuff away and just look at him as like, uh,
46:18
Speaker 1: a challenger to scientific Dogma. You can appreciate him on
46:23
Speaker 1: the on that level as well, like he he you
46:26
Speaker 1: can peel back different layers of this guy and appreciate
46:29
Speaker 1: different parts and also disagree with different parts. But so
46:32
Speaker 1: in his most recent when the Science Solution, he basically says,
46:36
Speaker 1: here are some things that science believes that we shouldn't
46:39
Speaker 1: necessarily believe, like that matters unconscious. And there are people
46:43
Speaker 1: out there, including physicists, who are like, you know, if
46:46
Speaker 1: consciousness were just a a property of all matter, and
46:50
Speaker 1: that the more matter you put together, the more sophisticated
46:54
Speaker 1: consciousness you got, that would explain a lot of stuff,
46:57
Speaker 1: including human consciousness. That's just an emergent property of all
47:01
Speaker 1: these particles that came together to form human beings. Um.
47:05
Speaker 1: But currently scientific establishment says no matters unconscious. That's just
47:12
Speaker 1: our understanding of it. That's the way it is, although
47:15
Speaker 1: that is being challenged by more people into super Sheldrake.
47:18
Speaker 1: And then there was another one. He gave it ted Talk,
47:20
Speaker 1: a Ted x white Chapel Talk was later banned, right,
47:25
Speaker 1: but they took it from their YouTube channel and then
47:28
Speaker 1: inserted it into a blog post. You can still see it,
47:31
Speaker 1: but they put it in a blog post because their
47:33
Speaker 1: science advisors have been like, uh, this is pretty heretical,
47:36
Speaker 1: and I don't think you should just be presenting it
47:38
Speaker 1: like it's just you need to couch it in some language.
47:41
Speaker 1: So they did and they put in a blog post,
47:43
Speaker 1: but you can still see it. It's not like they
47:44
Speaker 1: just took it down altogether. But um, it's a really
47:47
Speaker 1: interesting talk. It's only like twenty minutes long, but in
47:50
Speaker 1: it he makes a really good case about how the
47:53
Speaker 1: laws of nature, like the gravitational constant or the speed
47:57
Speaker 1: of light aren't actually constant, and physics needs those things
48:02
Speaker 1: to be constant for it to do its inquiries, for
48:05
Speaker 1: it to do its formula and equations, for the current
48:08
Speaker 1: theories to work. And he's saying, no, there's been periods
48:12
Speaker 1: in history where we've measured these things and gotten different,
48:15
Speaker 1: different measurements, and that during that same period, all these
48:18
Speaker 1: different um scientists around the world, we're getting roughly the
48:22
Speaker 1: same different measurements from what we thought it was before.
48:25
Speaker 1: How do you explain that? And I think that point
48:28
Speaker 1: is really important because if something like the speed of
48:31
Speaker 1: light does change, and understanding that it does and how
48:34
Speaker 1: it does could give us an even greater understanding of physics.
48:37
Speaker 1: And that right there, I think is the greatest role
48:41
Speaker 1: that Rupert Sheldrake plays is to say, no, stop looking
48:44
Speaker 1: at it through this lens. This lens is possibly incorrect
48:48
Speaker 1: at the very least, don't burn all your old stuff,
48:51
Speaker 1: don't throw it away, but just step to the side
48:53
Speaker 1: and approach it from a different way, just to see
48:56
Speaker 1: if that's the truth, and if it is the truth,
48:59
Speaker 1: and will have a great or understanding of how things
49:01
Speaker 1: actually work. Yeah, because the unexplainable are only unexplainable until
49:06
Speaker 1: they can be explained, You're right, you know, and various
49:09
Speaker 1: points throughout history there there were a lot of claims
49:13
Speaker 1: that things were unexplainable until they figured it out. And
49:17
Speaker 1: again we're not touting pseudoscience here because we have a
49:19
Speaker 1: pretty good track record of uh roundly sighting on the
49:23
Speaker 1: side of science. Yes, but and expertise to like, we
49:27
Speaker 1: both have a tremendous amount of respect for expertise. And
49:31
Speaker 1: you know, people who go study things for years and
49:32
Speaker 1: years and years and apply themselves to that understanding that
49:35
Speaker 1: one thing, that's an expert and they should generally be
49:38
Speaker 1: listened to. That's right, And shel Drake has proven himself
49:41
Speaker 1: out enough to be listened to. I think he's not. Uh,
49:44
Speaker 1: aliens Man, whoever that guy was? So yeah, I mean,
49:50
Speaker 1: make up your own mind. Go read about him, Go
49:53
Speaker 1: read both sides about him if you if you're interested
49:55
Speaker 1: in this, don't just listen to us like he's definitely
49:57
Speaker 1: one of those people. You should make your own mind up.
49:59
Speaker 1: And if you disagree, great, If you agree, fantastic. We're
50:03
Speaker 1: just kinda we just kind of admire thinkers like that.
50:06
Speaker 1: That's right. Are you got anything else? I got nothing else,
50:10
Speaker 1: Rupert Sheldrake. That was it. If you want to know
50:14
Speaker 1: more about him, go read I go, go read his books.
50:17
Speaker 1: Go do what you want. Um. And in the meantime,
50:20
Speaker 1: since I say go do what you want, it's time
50:21
Speaker 1: for listener mail. Yeah. This one is a little long,
50:26
Speaker 1: but this was a firsthand account from the Iowa Caucus,
50:29
Speaker 1: so I thought it bared reading. Uh. This is from Lauren,
50:33
Speaker 1: a student at the University of Iowa, participated in her
50:36
Speaker 1: first Iowa Caucus. She said I went last Well, she
50:40
Speaker 1: did say that I went because it's such a big
50:42
Speaker 1: deal here and since I'm graduating, I thought it might
50:44
Speaker 1: be my only chance. However, this week's events. It's looking
50:48
Speaker 1: like it maybe the last time anyone is going to participate.
50:51
Speaker 1: There were several logistical issues in my opinion, that led
50:54
Speaker 1: to issues where I was participating. My caucus location was
50:58
Speaker 1: downtown Iowa City at the Ingle Alert Englert Theater. My
51:02
Speaker 1: roommate and I arrived about forty five minutes before to
51:05
Speaker 1: make sure we could be in the door before seven,
51:08
Speaker 1: since we had been told if you weren't in the door,
51:11
Speaker 1: then t s for you. Two lines for the caucus
51:14
Speaker 1: wrapped around the block, one for people who registered in
51:16
Speaker 1: the correct precinct and one for people who needed to
51:19
Speaker 1: change their registration to the correct precinct. There were over
51:22
Speaker 1: seven people in our caucus location alone, far more than
51:25
Speaker 1: a the Democratic Party of Iowa had expected. Since my
51:30
Speaker 1: caucus location was at theater, was almost impossible to distinguish
51:33
Speaker 1: where different candidates were in the room. The Bernie and
51:36
Speaker 1: Warren groups were so large they had locations on the
51:38
Speaker 1: floor and had to have satellite spots in the balcony
51:42
Speaker 1: when it came time to do the head count. The
51:44
Speaker 1: overcrowded space led to issues tallying people. All of the
51:48
Speaker 1: campaign volunteers had reported numbers caucus delegate informed us that
51:52
Speaker 1: the total number of people under each candidate was about
51:54
Speaker 1: fifty under the amount of total people checked in, so
51:58
Speaker 1: they assumed that fifty all had chosen to leave before
52:01
Speaker 1: the votes were all tallied, but the campaign volunteers demanded
52:04
Speaker 1: a recount. All in all, it took about two and
52:07
Speaker 1: a half hours to get through the first round of
52:09
Speaker 1: caucusing to find out which candidates would be bible. My
52:12
Speaker 1: prediction is that because Islands are so passionate about their
52:15
Speaker 1: caucus system, they'll probably happen again next election cycle, but
52:18
Speaker 1: since their faux importance is brought to public consciousness this year,
52:22
Speaker 1: they'll eventually die away to a primary system soon. That
52:26
Speaker 1: is from Lauren Cheshire. Lauren, that was a great account.
52:30
Speaker 1: You're basically like the Hunter Thompson correspondent of stuff you
52:35
Speaker 1: should know, and we appreciate that big time. That's right
52:38
Speaker 1: the Iowa after that, and the name of the subject
52:42
Speaker 1: line of the email was the Iowa caucus is depraved
52:45
Speaker 1: and decadent. Very nice. Um, So if you want to
52:50
Speaker 1: get in touch with us to let us know something
52:51
Speaker 1: that's going on in your neck of the woods while
52:53
Speaker 1: we want to hear about it, you can go on
52:55
Speaker 1: to stuff you Should Know dot com. I don't know
52:57
Speaker 1: why you would want to these days. Instead to send
53:00
Speaker 1: us an email, wrap it up, spank it on the bottom,
53:02
Speaker 1: and send it off to stuff podcast at i heeart
53:05
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
53:11
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53:13
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53:16
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