The big lie of genetics exposed: human DNA incapable of storing complete blueprint of the human form

© Natural News

The big lie of genetics exposed: human DNA incapable of storing complete blueprint of the human form
Sept 29, 2013 | Natural News | Mike Adams

The curse of being a critical thinker is that you can't turn it off, I've discovered. So you become a critical thinker about everything you've been told or taught, and as it turns out, most of what we've all been taught about genetics is a lie.

But don't take my word for it. Join me as we take an honest, critical look at genetics using the same kind of skepticism scientists demand we invoke when looking at medicinal herbs or acupuncture.

Genetics is an attempt by materialistic scientists to offer a purely materialist view of inheritance and development of not just physical bodies but non-physical inherited attributes such as instinctive behaviors and cellular function.

According to the theory of genetics, physical gene sequences contained in chromosomes found in each cell in your body are a "blueprint" for all your body's physical structures, biochemical functions and inherited behavioral patterns. This blueprint, the theory goes, contains ALL the instructions needed to create a complete human form with all its physical structures, physiological functions and inherited behaviors fully represented and complete.

Because of the enormous complexity of the human body, organ function, cell structures and instinctive behaviors, it was once believed that humans must possess somewhere around 2 million protein-coding genes. The Human Genome Project was launched in 1990 with the widespread belief that when it was finished, it would "unlock" all the mysteries of the origins of disease in humans. It was also believed that when the human genome fully mapped, scientists would be able to create humans in any form they wanted, including humans with extra arms or legs, humans free of all disease, humans with "enhanced" physical powers, and so on.

At the start of the Human Genome Project, everybody "knew" that humans were far more complex than, say, a roundworm, which only has about 20,000 protein-coding genes. This is why estimates of the number of genes in a human ranged from 100,000 to 2 million. Scientists were absolutely sure that humans were far more complex than a tiny roundworm, and therefore humans needed far more genes.

The Human Genome Project suffers an "epic fail" 

The first draft of the Human Genome Project was published in the year 2,000. Far from being a breakthrough that would end all human disease, its findings utterly shattered the mythology of genetics as the sole explanation for all inheritance and physical development. Why? Because the Human Genome Project found that humans have only about 20,000 protein-coding genes, roughly the same number as the roundworm.

Huh? A human being has about the same number of protein-coding genes as a roundworm? Yes. And that's straight out of the mouths of human genome researchers who are, themselves, hard-core materialists.

By comparison, the common fruit fly has about 15,000 genes, only marginally less than a human. And yet it is obvious to any intelligent observer than a human being is considerably more complex than a fruit fly and a roundworm. So why didn't the Human Genome Project find a lot more genes that code proteins in humans?

Genetic inheritance theory shattered

The findings of the multi-billion-dollar Human Genome Project shattered the mythology of genetic materialism, sending nearly the entire scientific community into a tailspin and forcing "the great genetic cover-up" to begin.

Human genes simply needed "more research" to be understood, scientists exclaimed. And since the year 2000, that research has continued to no avail. The cover-up continues...

The truth is that there isn't enough data storage in 20,000 genes to hold a blueprint for a human being.

Human DNA data storage capacity 

Allow me to explain this from a computer science point of view, as many of you know I founded a very successful computer software company and was the head of R&D for many computer science projects, including the popular new SCIENCE.naturalnews.com which uses advanced statistical algorithms to analyze scientific concepts across millions of published studies.

The human genome contains about 3 billion "base pairs" of genes. Each base pair can exist in one of four possible combinations of the four bases that make up DNA: Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Cytosine (C), and Guanine (G).

From a digital storage point of view -- as DNA is "digital" in its format -- a base pair is equivalent to two bits of binary data, which can represent four possible states as follows:

00
01
10
11

In computer storage vernacular, a "byte" is eight bits of data, such as:

01011010

Four DNA base pairs, then, makes one byte of data.

Given that there are roughly 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, this equates to roughly about 750MB of data storage capacity.

It turns out this number is shockingly small. 750MB is smaller than the file of a typical modern video game. It's smaller than a movie on a DVD, in fact. It's so small that a typical miniature thumb drive you might buy at Best Buy can actually store over 20 times as much data (that's merely a 16 GB thumb drive). You can buy a 16GB SD card right now on Amazon.com for a mere $12.

750MB of data is so small that no one can explain how it could possibly account for a human body with extraordinary complexity while somehow encompassing physical, structural, functional and behavioral inheritance as well.

To get a grasp of the complexity of the human body, realize that your body is made of 60 - 90 trillion cells. Each cell is its own ecosystem with highly complex functions including cell energy production, waste removal, cell membrane function, the nucleus command control center, and so on.

Your body manufactures 10 million red blood cells every hour. It has a capacity to heal damaged tissues almost everywhere. Your skin and intestines are being slowly replaced with new cells every minute. Your immune system is incredibly complex and highly capable, representing the most advanced system of nanotechnology that modern science has ever witnessed.

On top of all this, you are born with innate behaviors and the ability to develop, all on your own, the behavioral skills to walk, talk, focus your eyes, digest foods, eliminate waste, sweat, breathe and much more. Meanwhile, your body accomplishes billions of chemical reactions every second without you even knowing it. Somehow, every cell, organ and organ system in your body knows what to do to keep you alive and functioning.

Your body and its functions are unimaginably complex. Simply cataloging the structure and function of all the cells in your body right now would take countless terabytes of data -- more than a million times larger than "megabytes" of data.

Yet the entire human genome delivers only 750MB worth of data storage. Obviously, this is wholly insufficient to describe the entire structure, function and development of a human being. No matter how the desperate materialists try to keep us focused on human genes, it flat-out isn't possible to store a full blueprint of the human form in 750MB of data.

The human genome, therefore, is not the entire blueprint of human development. Although some genes do obviously code for some physical characteristics (such as eye color), genes alone do not contain the full blueprint. There must be something else that also contributes morphological information in addition to DNA.

The Human Genome Project, to the shock of nearly all materialists, ultimately proved exactly the opposite of what scientists had hoped. It proved that genes alone do not explain inheritance.

The materialists were horrified by this finding. To this very day, they are pouring over human genome data, desperately trying to find some "meta data" that would explain all inheritance. What they refuse to acknowledge is that there is a non-physical field of inheritance patterns that functions as an overlay to the human genome, interacting with it and enhancing its scope with non-physical encoding of additional information needed to develop a complete human form.

That field is called the "morphic resonance" field, and it was proposed by one of the most brilliant, revolutionary scientific thinkers of our time, Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist and author of "Science Set Free."

Morphic resonance fields infuriate materialists 

The idea of morphic resonance infuriates materialists -- and nearly all modern-day scientists are materialists -- because the presence of a non-physical field of information naturally leads to the most dangerous idea of all to materialist science: the idea of consciousness.

This idea that your body as a whole, as well as each cell in your body, can tap into a field of information which encodes the "memory" of what a human form is supposed to be threatens the very pillars of materialistic science, upon which nearly the entire pharmaceutical industry is based, by the way. This is why materialist scientists are desperately attempting to defend the human genome as the single source of all the information needed to develop a human body, even though the human genome clearly doesn't have the storage capacity to represent an entire body (not to mention inherited physiological functions and behavioral inheritance).

The best place to read and learn about morphic resonance is at Rupert Sheldrake's website:
http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/pap...

I also recommend his amazingly insightful book, A New Science of Life.

Keep in mind that if you read about Rupert Sheldrake from any materialistic science website -- including Scientific American which is 100% pro-Monsanto, pro-GMO and anti GMO labeling, by the way -- you are going to read vicious attacks against Sheldrake from desperate materialists who brand morphic resonance as "magical thinking."

This is especially comic, given that these same materialists believe the entire universe in which we live spontaneously appeared from nowhere without cause or reason through a process they call the "Big Bang." Somehow, the big bang isn't magical thinking to the materialists, but the idea of a non-physical field of inheritance is magical thinking. It's almost like these people have never heard of gravity: yet another invisible field that affects all living things.

How does your hand know it's a hand? 

Another key problem with the theory of genetic inheritance is that even though all the cells across your body are supposed to contain the same exact genetic code, somehow the cells in your hand knew they were supposed to grow into a hand, not a foot or an ear, for example.

Conventional genetics has no explanation for this. How does a cell "know" it's supposed to be a specialized cell functioning as a tiny part of the whole? If every blood cell in your body contains the DNA for your entire body, how does it "know" to form itself into a blood cells and not, for example, a skin cell?

Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance explanation provides an answer. The cell taps into a knowledge field -- a non-physical pattern blueprint -- and through influence with that field, the cell knows to activate only the genes that code for it to form a blood cell. The local physical genes accomplish the protein coding, but the morphic resonance field directs the pattern of which genes to activate. This is how morphic fields interact with DNA.

The human genome, in other words, works hand in hand with a non-physical information field that keeps physical form development organized so that the resulting form is a human. The morphic resonance field "knows" the pattern of being human because it is a pattern that has been reinforced by billions of other humans who came before you and contributed to the resonance of the field.

This explains the missing link in DNA -- the fact that DNA alone cannot store the entire blueprint of the human form. The master blueprint is actually found in the non-physical morphic field. Local DNA are simply "protein builders" that follow the morphic resonance blueprint.

Just like there is an energetic pattern for a human being, there's also a different energetic template for an oak tree, and it overlays the genes from an oak tree seed, directing it to form a fully-grown oak tree. For every cell, every organ, every organ system and every life form on our planet (and across the universe), there is a morphic resonance field that provides the template overlay which affects local gene activation.

Learn more about morphic resonance

This article, of course, is only a short summary of the concept of morphic resonance. To learn more, I encourage you to read books by Rupert Sheldrake, and visit the Sheldrake.org website.

Keep in mind that Sheldrake's theories absolute infuriate materialist scientists. The journal Nature actually suggested that Sheldrake should be burned at the stake... like a witch, I suppose. TED talks essentially banned Sheldrake from speaking because he dared mention the idea of "consciousness."

Everywhere across the fatally closed-minded community of materialist science, Sheldrake is considered to be worse than a demon... he is a non-believer in the Church of Materialism! And there is no greater sin to today's cult-like science community than non-belief in materialism.

This is why Sheldrake's ideas will be viciously attacked, demonized and denied... up until the day they are finally embraced and accepted as the "new science of life." In a hundred years, Sheldrake will likely be remembered as far more important to science than even Charles Darwin. His ideas are not merely revolutionary, but desperately needed to advance science beyond the limiting realm of materialism. If science does not expand its scope beyond chemical structures, it will never understand life and will always remain mystified and frustrated about why genes still don't control much in the way of inheritance.

Watch for more coverage of Rupert Sheldrake here on Natural News, where our ideas are rooted in science yet not limited by the artificial confines of materialism. We also hope to interview Sheldrake soon and bring you the interview that TED won't allow you to hear.

Questions for faith believers in materialist genetics 

1. Where is the gene for creativity? If creative works (songs, poems, fiction novels, etc.) are merely the work of mechanistic brains following genetic instructions, then all the lifelong works of creative individuals (musicians, artists, novelists, etc.) must somehow be encoded in the DNA before birth. Where is all this creativity encoded?

2. How does a blood cell know to make itself into a blood cell and not a skin cell?

3. Why is most physical inheritance unable to be traced to DNA? (The "heritability problem.")

4. If there is not enough storage capacity in the human genome to fully describe the human form, then where does the rest of the blueprint come from?

5. Where is the genetic code for love, compassion and cooperation, without which human civilization never would have survived?

6. If human consciousness is an illusion, as materialists claim, then it can have no impact on human behavior, which is purely mechanistic, they insist. So then why did the "illusion of consciousness" evolve in human beings if it serves no purpose? This contradicts one of the more fundamental tenants of natural selection.

7. Are you, yourself, purely a mechanistic biological robot suffering under the illusion of consciousness? And if so, then why should we listen to anything you have to say in the first place?

Learn more 

Watch this video of Rupert Sheldrake to learn more:

The 10 false assumptions of modern science (and how to set science free with new paths to discovery)

© Southweb.org

The 10 false assumptions of modern science (and how to set science free with new paths to discovery)
Aug 25, 2013 | Life Wise | Mike Adams

Much of modern science remains stuck in an endless inward spiral of false paradigms. That’s why “scientific” medicine, for example, offers no real answers to the really big diseases: cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and so on.

More importantly, modern medicine will never solve these problems unless it abandons its false assumptions and embraces the “higher science” beyond reductionism and materialism.

This is the message of one of the most important books of our time: Science Set Free by Rupert Sheldrake.

This book, available both in hardcopy and audio formats (from Audible.com), outlines 10 new pathways to discovery that promise to allow human civilization to leap forward into a new era of understanding, achievement and the harnessing of the power of nature and the cosmos. (I own the audible.com edition and have been excitedly listening!)

“Rupert Sheldrake may be to the twenty-first century what Charles Darwin was to the nineteenth: someone who sent science spinning in wonderfully new and fertile directions.” – Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Reinventing Medicine

The ten false assumptions of modern day science

Much like myself, Sheldrake is very much “pro science.” But he is disturbed by how scientific advancement has become trapped in a cultural tar pit of delusional beliefs and false assumptions. These false assumptions, listed below, hold science back and prevent human civilization from progressing toward a more profound understanding of nature, ourselves and our universe. (And that’s the whole point of science in the first place. Not to enrich corporations but to deepen our understanding of the universe.)

The following 10 items are Sheldrake’s, but the comments for each item are my own. For the record, Sheldrake may or may not agree completely with my own explanations for each heading here, but they are written in the spirit of what I believe he is wanting to say. If you want his full explanation of these ten items, read his book.

False Assumption #1) The universe is mechanical 

Modern science believes the entire universe is made of up “stuff” and nothing else. There is no consciousness, no spirit, no mind and nothing other than mechanical and chemical stuff.

This explains modern science’s obsession with finding smaller and smaller particles at CERN. Many scientists actually believe that if the smallest bits and pieces of a mechanical universe are finally identified and labeled — because labels are really, really important to the materialistic worldview — then the entire cosmos will finally be understood and the “delusion” of God / creator / architect can finally be dismissed forever (in their view). Their goal is the ultimate pessimism: to destroy any belief in a higher intelligence and to doom humans to living pointless lives that end in their total destruction at the moment of death.

False Assumption #2) All matter is unconscious 

The most astonishing delusion in modern science is the fact that most modern scientists do not believe they are, themselves, conscious beings. This is also true with Stephen Hawking, whom has written about in some detail. (See mini-documentary The God Within for a full explanation.)

Modern science assumes that humans are nothing more than biological robots and that animals are not conscious either. They literally believe that consciousness is an illusory artifact of the chemical brain. Not surprisingly, they also do not believe that plants and other living systems are conscious. Even further, the idea that inanimate objects such as minerals or crystals might have some sort of consciousness is considered heresy by most modern scientists.

This denial of consciousness is an assumption, however. There is no evidence supporting the assumption. In fact, first-person evidence of the human experience appears to directly contradict the false assumption that humans are not conscious.

Story continues below…




False Assumption #3) The total amount of matter and energy is always a constant 

This assumption of modern science is especially suspicious given that even conventional cosmologists readily admit that 96% of the universe has yet to be detected at all. That’s the “dark matter / dark energy” portion of the universe, and to my knowledge, neither dark matter nor dark energy have ever been directly measured or seen by human scientists.

Except for the theoretical Big Bang, there is no phenomenon by which modern scientists believe the totality of matter and energy can come into existence or exit our universe.

This assumption is especially bizarre considering the theoretical framework of the Big Bang theory, which claims all the known matter and energy in the entire cosmos spontaneously appeared without cause, all on its own, without any intention or reason. The Big Bang theory — and its accompanying theory of cosmological inflation – are, by any definition, a bizarre kind of material mysticism that goes to great lengths to deny the existence of a creator / designer / engineer / intelligent advanced civilization / etc.

False Assumption #4) The laws of nature are fixed 

This, too, is an assumption that looks to have already unraveled thanks to the efforts of a few modern-day scientists themselves. As a simple example, multiple physics experiments are now being conducted all over the world — and widely replicated — which show “faster than light” teleportation of information via quantum entanglement.

As just one example of this, here’s a ScienceDaily.com article describing faster-than-light quantum teleportation spanning 143km:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120905134356.htm

(In theory, instantaneous quantum teleportation could take place over a billion kilometers. The distance makes no difference. Quantum teleportation ignores the apparent laws of physics, including the “cosmological speed limit” known as the speed of light.)

According to classic laws of nature, such quantum teleportation is impossible. In fact, all quantum computing should be impossible, and come to think of it, transistors shouldn’t function either. But they do. And they do it by breaking the classic laws of physics.

Yet the far stronger argument for challenging false assumption #4 is found in multiverse theory which states that our known cosmos is just one of an infinite — yes, infinite! — number of other universes, each with its own variation of the laws of physics. Only in a small fraction of all universes is, for example, the strength of the weak nuclear force set at precisely the right number to result in the formation of stars, planets and carbon-based life. But because there are an infinite number of universes, there are also an infinite number of universes where the laws of physics exactly equal our own… and even where “mirror” human civilizations almost perfectly reflect our own.

Look up the “anthropic principle” if you’d like to dig into this subject a little more. Or read Goldilocks Engima: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? by Paul Davies.

I also recommend author David Deutsch.

False Assumption #5) Nature is purposeless, with no goal or direction 

The Darwinian framework of biological science assumes that nature achieves highly complex biological structures, social structures, mechanical engineering and behavioral cultures simply through the process of natural selection. While natural selection is constantly taking place throughout nature, it alone is not sufficient to explain the ability of plants, animals, humans and possibly even universes to achieve remarkable end goals purely through chance and inheritance.

There appears to be a “driving creative force” behind much of what we observe in nature, including in animals and humans. This driving creative force, if you get right down to it, appears to have a connection with spirit — a non-physical “mind” which gives consciousness to physical beings of all kinds.

What we see in the natural world — in ecosystems, plants, animals and even humans — is not explainable through natural selection alone. There exists intention, consciousness and a seeming desire to achieve complex goals by taking fantastic evolutionary leaps which modern science cannot explain.

As a simple example of this, consider the fact that although many thousands of humanoid-like fossils have been unearthed in the last two centuries, there are still no fossils that record the theoretical “missing link” which is supposed to link humans to primates. Why have no such fossils been found? Almost certainly because they do not exist.

False Assumption #6) All biological inheritance is material, carried in DNA 

The idea that your DNA controls your body and your life is now an ancient myth. Only in the materialistic circles of old school “science” do people still think DNA alone controls your health, your behavior and all your inherited attributes.

Today we know that there are epigenetic factors beyond DNA which strongly influence the development of biological beings. We also know that environmental factors (i.e. exposure to chemicals, heavy metals, nutrients, etc.) strongly influence either the suppression or the hyper-activation of genes. Vitamin D, for example, is one of the most powerful gene activators in human biology, turning on “healing genes” light microscopic light switches.

Furthermore, consciousness and free will overrides DNA. While you may have an inherited tendency toward a particular behavior, you can choose to override that behavior as a matter of choice. The mind trumps the mechanics, in other words, if the mind is sufficiently trained (through meditation, typically).

False Assumption #7) There is no such thing as a “mind” other than an artifact of brain function 

I find it bewildering that most modern-day scientists still do not dare acknowledge the existence of the “mind” — a non-material awareness / presence / consciousness that coexists with the brain but is not derived from the mechanics and chemistry of the brain.

Comically, many scientists use their minds to attempt to disprove the existence of all minds. They would like us to believe self-awareness is an illusion or that terms like “mind” or “consciousness” are just “word tricks” used to talk about brain chemistry, not actual concepts that really exist.

But they have failed. To date, there is no scientific proof whatsoever that supports the odd notion that consciousness does not exist or that the mind is not present in a conscious being. “Science” cannot disprove these things because the tools of modern-day science are materialistic by definition and therefore incapable of proving or disproving non-material phenomena. It’s like trying to measure the speed of a moving object with a thermometer.

False Assumption #8) Memories are stored chemically in the brain and disappear at death 

In summary, modern scientists believe that memories are stored chemically, using the brain as some sort of biological hard drive, and that if they could only find the location of the brain in which these chemicals are stored, they could literally “read your mind” like copying files from a thumb drive.

This assumption is wildly off the mark. I’m convinced that memories are holographically stored across not only brain matter itself, but also in a non-material spirit matrix of some sort which interacts with the physical brain.

This is why the physical location of memories in the brain can never be located by scientists. This is also why some people are shockingly found to be fully functional in our world even though they have virtually no brain matter whatsoever. For example, here’s a New Scientist story about a man who had almost no brain matter whatsoever but still possessed average IQ and was a normal part of society.

And yes, the man had memories, too. So if memories are “stored” somewhere in the brain as modern-day scientists falsely believe, then how could this man have memories if he had virtually no physical brain to begin with? How could he function at all? (And his story is just one of many…)

False Assumption #9) Unexplained phenomena such as telepathy are illusory 

Modern-day “skeptics” go to great lengths to try to disprove anything that even smacks of “mentalism” or telepathy. But they can’t rationally refute the scientific work of people like Dean Radin, author of The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena.

Radin has, over and over again, scientifically shown strongly convincing evidence for low-level telepathy and other phenomena such as premonition. Explanations for such phenomena are entirely consistent with quantum non-locality and quantum entanglement, which Einstein called “spooky action [at a distance].”

The most likely explanation for all this is that the human brain, being a holographic, hybrid physical / non-physical computational and awareness engine of sorts, is also “entangled” with all matter in the universe at a quantum level. The brainmind, if you will, seems to be both a transmitter and receiver of quantum information that is continually and instantly rippling across the cosmos. Tuning in to that information is a lot like tuning to the correct radio station and suddenly finding the music becoming crystal clear. (David Icke uses this same analogy to explain many of his own concepts about consciousness and the nature of reality.

“Skeptics” who attempt to refute the science of the work of people like Dean Radin eventually end up declaring something like, “If that were true, we would already know it” — a classic example of failed circular reasoning bordering on self-congratulatory dogma.

False Assumption #10) Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works 

On this point, much of the Natural News website is dedicated to explaining why mechanistic medicine is a failed system of medicine. Get this: most modern-day scientists do not believe that any vitamin, any mineral or any food has any biological effect whatsoever on the human body other than providing calories, sugars, proteins, fiber and fat. This wildly delusional belief is enshrined in the FDA’s regulatory framework and is practiced throughout hospitals and health clinics across the planet.

Yet it is a truly moronic belief. How can vitamin D have no effect on the human body when nearly every organ in the body has vitamin D receptors? How can minerals play no role in human health when elements like magnesium and calcium are necessary for the most fundamental chemical processes of muscle neurology?

The physical part of the human being obviously requires physical building blocks. Those building blocks are nutrients, plant-based chemicals, minerals, proteins and water. They are not statin drugs, blood pressure meds, chemotherapy and radiation. The mechanistic model of medicine is an utter failure for human civilization. It has been a huge success in generating profits for drug companies and hospitals, however, which is exactly why this failed system is so desperately defended by those who profit from it.

In this article, I’ve only touched on some of these important concepts. To really delve into this, read Science Set Free by Rupert Sheldrake.

The ideas described in the book are truly revolutionary. They are also perfectly natural — and in fact, many should be obvious to any true scientist who isn’t brainwashed by academic dogma or corporate profit agendas.

Albert Einstein is famously quoted as saying, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Yet that’s what much of modern science is trying to do… let’s solve the cancer problem by finding a chemical that kills cancer! Yeah, that’ll do it!

Or let’s study the tiny particles created by an atom smasher, then we’ll know the mind of God, yeah!
But these approaches will never succeed in answering the really big questions because they are rooted in 19th-century assumptions which we now know to be false. There is more to our universe than mere materialism. There is more to human consciousness than brain chemistry. There is more to biology than genetics and natural selection.

How obvious does it have to get, folks? THERE IS MORE TO DISCOVER if we only set ourselves free from the mental shackles of dogmatic, permanently pessimistic “science” as practiced today in our westernized, materialistic culture.

Join me in spreading the word about Rupert Sheldrake. This man is a true scientist taking part in the consciousness revolution which I believe to be a necessary step to the true uplifting of human civilization.

Source

Book Review: The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake

© Laurie and Charles/Getty Images
Dogs: do they really know
when you're coming home?

Book Review: The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake by Mary Midgley

The unlucky fact that our current form of mechanistic materialism rests on muddled, outdated notions of matter isn't often mentioned today. It's a mess that can be ignored for everyday scientific purposes, but for our wider thinking it is getting very destructive. We can't approach important mind-body topics such as consciousness or the origins of life while we still treat matter in 17th-century style as if it were dead, inert stuff, incapable of producing life. And we certainly can't go on pretending to believe that our own experience - the source of all our thought - is just an illusion, which it would have to be if that dead, alien stuff were indeed the only reality.

We need a new mind-body paradigm, a map that acknowledges the many kinds of things there are in the world and the continuity of evolution. We must somehow find different, more realistic ways of understanding human beings - and indeed other animals - as the active wholes that they are, rather than pretending to see them as meaningless consignments of chemicals.

Rupert Sheldrake, who has long called for this development, spells out this need forcibly in his new book. He shows how materialism has gradually hardened into a kind of anti-Christian faith, an ideology rather than a scientific principle, claiming authority to dictate theories and to veto inquiries on topics that don't suit it, such as unorthodox medicine, let alone religion. He shows how completely alien this static materialism is to modern physics, where matter is dynamic. And, to mark the strange dilemmas that this perverse fashion poses for us, he ends each chapter with some very intriguing "Questions for Materialists", questions such as "Have you been programmed to believe in materialism?", "If there are no purposes in nature, how can you have purposes yourself?", "How do you explain the placebo response?" and so on.

In short, he shows just how unworkable the assumptions behind today's fashionable habits have become. The "science delusion" of his title is the current popular confidence in certain fixed assumptions - the exaltation of today's science, not as the busy, constantly changing workshop that it actually is but as a final, infallible oracle preaching a crude kind of materialism.

In trying to replace it he needs, of course, to suggest alternative assumptions. But here the craft of paradigm-building has chronic difficulties. Our ancestors only finally stopped relying on the familiar astrological patterns when they had grown accustomed to machine-imagery instead - first becoming fascinated by the clatter of clockwork and later by the ceaseless buzz of computers, so that they eventually felt sure that they were getting new knowledge. Similarly, if we are told today that a mouse is a survival-machine, or that it has been programmed to act as it does, we may well feel that we have been given a substantial explanation, when all we have really got is one more optional imaginative vision - "you can try looking at it this way".

That is surely the right way to take new suggestions - not as rival theories competing with current ones but as extra angles, signposts towards wider aspects of the truth. Sheldrake's proposal that we should think of natural regularities as habits rather than as laws is not just an arbitrary fantasy. It is a new analogy, brought in to correct what he sees as a chronic exaggeration of regularity in current science. He shows how carefully research conventions are tailored to smooth out the data, obscuring wide variations by averaging many results, and, in general, how readily scientists accept results that fit in with their conception of eternal laws.

He points out too, that the analogy between natural regularities and habit is not actually new. Several distinctly non-negligible thinkers - CS Peirce, Nietzsche, William James, AN Whitehead - have already suggested it because they saw the huge difference between the kind of regularity that is found among living things and the kind that is expected of a clock or a calcium atom.

Whether or no we want to follow Sheldrake's further speculations on topics such as morphic resonance, his insistence on the need to attend to possible wider ways of thinking is surely right. And he has been applying it lately in fields that might get him an even wider public. He has been making claims about two forms of perception that are widely reported to work but which mechanists hold to be impossible: a person's sense of being looked at by somebody behind them, and the power of animals - dogs, say - to anticipate their owners' return. Do these things really happen?

Sheldrake handles his enquiries soberly. People and animals do, it seems, quite often perform these unexpected feats, and some of them regularly perform them much better than others, which is perhaps not surprising. He simply concludes that we need to think much harder about such things.

Orthodox mechanistic believers might have been expected to say what they think is wrong with this research. In fact, not only have scientists mostly ignored it but, more interestingly still, two professed champions of scientific impartiality, Lewis Wolpert and Richard Dawkins, who did undertake to discuss it, reportedly refused to look at the evidence (see two pages in this book). This might indeed be a good example of what Sheldrake means by the "science delusion".

1206 wds - Mary Midgley's The Solitary Self: Darwin and the Selfish Gene is published by Acumen.

Related:

It's Time For Science to Move on from Materialism