home | what's new | other sitescontact | about

 

 

Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity


 

Darwinism's main objection to
Dr. Sheldrake's morphogenesis

 


 

return to "Evolution Controversy" contents page

 

Editor’s note: The following information can be found in Dr. Sheldrake’s book, “Morphic Resonance,” or in his youtube interview with Joe Rogan at 28:15.

 

“not necessary”

Dr. Sheldrake explains that he developed his theory of morphogenesis beginning in the early 1970s. Wanting to be sure of his facts, he delayed publishing his ideas until the 1980s. At the debut, his colleagues in science, especially those in biology, “did not say what’s the evidence?, they just said, this is unnecessary.”

Dr. Sheldrake, from the preface to "The Presence Of The Past": "When the hypothesis was first published, it was inevitably controversial. I was not surprised by disagreement, but I was surprised -- and relieved -- by the fact that even my most vociferous critics came up with no evidence against the hypothesis, nor pointed out any serious logical flaws. Instead, they dismissed this hypothesis as unnecessary."

In other words, “We don’t need morphogenesis because we’re soon going to figure everything out in terms of genes and molecular biology. Give us time, we don’t need new ideas, everything is fine.”

This brash confidence in genetics as the final answer to life’s mysteries led to the Human Genome Project, culminating in the year 2000 – one of the greatest disappointments in the history of science.

 

 

 

 

Editor's last word:

What kind of an answer is “not necessary”? Science is supposed to be a treasure-hunt for the truth, and we don’t know which rabbit hole we’ll need to follow in order to find the good stuff.

Anytime you come across someone who is “sure,” you can pretty well know that they’re off-base. There’s a whole universe out there filled with knowledge and mystery, and to pontificate that something is “not necessary” is to “play god,” pretending “to know” when one does not know. Nobel laureate Richard Feynman had it right when he spoke, to the effect, of our expanding horizon of ignorance.

Darwinism, as we’ve said, is a “rival religion” in this evo-enquiry. And some of the worst cultish dogmatists you’ll find anywhere – more entrenched than the church-variety they rail against – are the “high priests in the temple of materialism.”