Roger,
This is NOT a conspiracy theory forum.
Would you please confine your emails to issues of relevance to the remit of the Friends of Wisdom - discussing how we can transform academia from knowledge based inquiry to wisdom based inquiry.
Thank you
Mathew
Roger Anderton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Lancelot Law Whyte article still surviving on Wikipedia, so I have added to Morphogenetic field article on wikipedia, the following:
"Morphogenetic fields was also dealt with by Lancelot Law Whyte in 1949, while working on Einstein's Unified Field Theory. "
Before this input; the existing article was thinking that Sheldrake invented the idea in the 80s.
Morphogenetic field
A morphogenetic field (a subset of morphic field) is a hypothetical biological (and potentially social) field that contains the information necessary to shape the exact form of a living thing, as part of its epigenetics, and may also shape its behaviour and coordination with other beings (see also morphogenesis). This hypothesis is not accepted by most scientists, who consider it pseudoscientific.[1] [2]
Contents[hide]
1 Research background
2 Evidence
3 Critical reception
4 Continuing experiments
5 Notes
6 Use in fiction
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
[edit] Research background British biologist Rupert Sheldrake posited a theory of morphogenetic fields that has become well-known for the criticism and skepticism directed towards it by some prominent members of the scientific community. The theory of morphic fields is not currently accepted by mainstream science. That a mode of transmission of shared concepts and archetypes might exist did gain some tacit acceptance, when it was proposed as the theory of collective unconscious by renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung. A morphic field might provide an explanation for the theory.
Sheldrake trained as a plant physiologist and became interested in the way that living things took on their form. In particular, he was interested in how what began as a single cell that split into identical copies eventually changed to take on specific characteristics such as leaves or stems in a plant.
At the time of his research in the late 1960s and 1970s, the mechanisms for such development were unclear. In the 1920s, embryo regeneration and the ability of willow shoots to grow whole new trees implied to some researchers the possibility of some influencing field. The later discovery of DNA appeared at first to offer a clearer explanation, but since the DNA remains largely identical throughout an organism, it was thought that DNA could not explain form. Subsequent research revealed that DNA controls the form of a creature through the complex mechanism of cellular differentiation.
Sheldrake observed:
"The instructors [at university] said that all morphogenesis is genetically programmed. They said different species just follow the instruction in their genes. But a few moments' reflection show that this reply is inadequate. All the cells of the body contain the same genes. In your body, the same genetic program is present in your eye cells, liver cells and the cells in your arms. The ones in your legs. But if they are all programmed identically, how do they develop so differently?" Sheldrake then became interested in "holistic" ideas after reading Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's works on the topic. He developed a theory to explain this problem of morphology, with its basic concept relying on a universal field encoding the "basic pattern" of an object. He termed it the "morphogenetic field".
The morphogenetic field would provide a force that guided the development of an organism as it grew, making it take on a form similar to that of others in its species. DNA was not the source of structure itself, but rather a "receiver" that translated instructions in the field into physical form.
A feedback mechanism, morphic resonance, would lead to changes in this pattern, as well as explain why humans did not "pick up" the pattern of plants during development. In Sheldrake's theory, the existence of a form is itself sufficient to make it easier for that form to come to exist somewhere else.
Morphogenetic fields was also dealt with by Lancelot Law Whyte in 1949, while working on Einstein's Unified Field Theory. [3]
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