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The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God

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It may appear that the division into serious scientists and con-men of the scientific world is something obvious and undeniable. Nevertheless, there are people who are real scientits, but they profess controversial, or even revolutionary, theories, called by some a scientific heresy. One of the representatives of this group is Rupert Sheldrake, a British biologist, educated in Cambridge and Harvard, publishing in Nature and other renowned journals specializing in natural sciences.The basis for most of his theories can be found in "The Rebirth of Nature. The Greening of Science and God".

In "The Rebirth of Nature" Sheldrake describes the animistic theory of nature in contrast to the mechanistic one, starting with a solid, historical introduction. The original, old beliefs, based on the power of Nature and the Mother Goddess and, in consequence, on matriarchy, gave way initially to the aggressive male gods, resulting in the end of simple haromony, and beginning of wars and hostile human attitude towards the surrounding world (Sheldrake is very interested in feminism, and vice versa, proving, that all theories and philosophies, even at the surface very diverse, somehow, somewhere have a point in common).

The next, and, according to the author, much more important breakthrough was the end of search for scientific proofs of existence of the soul, ether and any divine, or experimentally undescribable, elements, warranting the existence of life. The faith in the divine was then substituted by the mechanistic theory - which says that we, humans, together with all beings, are governed solely by the laws of physics and these laws explain absolutely all functions of ou organisms as well as personal and social behavior.

This breakthrough was initiated in the Renaissance by simple experiments, such as lack of weight difference between alive and dead animals proving, according to the scientists of that era, that after death the mechanism simply stops working. According to Sheldrake, the common sense says that this very experiment can be interpreted in the way disadvantageous for the mechanistic theory, because if nothing material decides if the organism is alive or dead, the life cannot be explained by the part of the physical mechanism... (besides, what about the "21 grams"?)

Paradoxically, the breakthrough was reinforced by Reformation and the Protestants' sober attitude to life, and stabilized in the Enlightment period. The theory of evolution beutifully confirmed the mechanistic theory, at least in the initial stage.

In spite of all, many contemporary theoretical biologists lean towards the holistic concept of natural philosophy, linking physical laws of nature with the belief in the forces and connections among all the animated and non-animated components of the Planet Earth.

The important part of the holistic theory are fields. The discovery of fields, such as gravity, magnetism or electricity, in physics, shaked the mechanistic theory to a certain degree, because gave the examples of "immaterial" energy interactions (the author somehow omits the physical particle element of these interactions, but never mind). Sheldrake postulates, by analogy, the existence of the morphogenetic fields, responsible for the formation and evolution of life. He also gives interesting examples of phenomena, which are not yet explained or completely deciphered by sciene.

One such phenomenon is memory - indeed, although lesions in particular parts of the brain cause various types of memory loss, it is not known, where and how the memories are stored and segregated. Sheldrake compares the brain to a TV set: it is equally vain to search in the neurons for the traces of past events, as to look in the circuits for the traces of the TV shows. The destructions of a component will cause problems with the reception of a given channel, but does not prove that the trace of this channel, its memory was in the damaged component (this is such an oversimplification... and I am even not sure if it is accurate, but definitely it is a good image).

Sheldrake supports the contemporary, holistic natural philosophy with the Gaia hypothesis, conceived by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. The Gaia hypothesis, or the hypothesis of Earth as an organism (according to Lovelock; Margulis tones down his expressions quite a bit, saying thet our planet cannot really be called "a living organism" without complete re-definition of the term "life") - at least as a self-regulating biosphere and biotope, explains, how the Earth could have maintained relatively constant environmental conditions for a long time (for example, the constant salt concentration in seawater is explained with the mechanism of lagoon formation) and warns against (caused, of course, by mechanistic way of thinking) influence of our species on the environment. One of the main points of the Gaia hypothesis is treating Homo sapiens as one if the nods in the network of interactions, together with other species of living organisms and also with the unanimated components of our environment, not, like we are used to, as a higher intelligence created to rule over the world. (the problem with using the Gaia hypothesis to prove anything is that it is a HYPOTHESIS).

Sheldrake develops his theory, discussing many scientific unknowns, getting through the weak points of the theory of evolution and medical mysteries to the thoughts about the Big Band abd the beginnings of the Universe. He concludes with a statement that the old, mechanistic theory still exists, but in a conspiratory form, the proof of which seems to be Richard Dawkins and his book "The Selfish Gene". I am rather on the side of Dawkins as long as the scientific beliefs go, but Sheldrakes arguments (despite the fact that the theory of selfish genes creating our bodies and influencing emotions is not, as Sheldrake would want, a simple depiction of living creatures as robots manipulated by DNA, like by a computer program - even Dawkins formulates it differently now and clearly the title of his book was mostly a commercial trick) make a lot of logical sense and it is difficult to argue with them - they require a lot of solid knowledge (many tried).

"The Rebirth of Nature" is a good (albeit biased) introduction to contemporary theoretical biology and a proof of importance of this branch of biology, so neglected in the age of molecular biology and biochemistry.
The other advantage of this book is a good bibliography, full of references to original publications. It is not necessary to agree with the author and it is possible to close an eye to many obvious simplifications, but it is interesting to learn, what is the way of thinking of one of very active scientists, who is not present in a school curriculum and also get some distance and critical attitude towards the knowledge, nowadays commonly agreed to be right.

As a neuropsychologist I found this book challenging. The theory of memory as morphic fields begins to explain phenomena such as the "100 monkeys rule" and the description of thought as a non-local event. Strongly recommend this book to any inquisitive mind.

Rupert presents a balanced and logical presentation of how scientific thought began, describing
its progress from the dawn of civilisations through the Renaissance, to modern-day empirical
platitudes. He shows that both sides are manifestly wrong in their attempts at explaining what
is truly observed in terms of behaviour and function. He concurrently presents an alternative
argument based on morphic fields and the fact that everything any living thing does is
recorded into these fields forever, to be called on whenever a resonance with a living member
of that species occurs with these fields. For example, DNA does not explain why, amid the same
protein building blocks, and DNA pattern in each cell, an embryo's arm grows differently to
its leg. Morphic fields, however, remember how the blocks go together and exert an influence to
survival-successful ends.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It is superb and really eye-opening. For example, the
parallelism between marsupial and placental mammals, shows how the same design, but with slight
variations, can come about through universal morphic fields. It also leaves room for
speculation as to how the morphic fields caused by this planet, match those on other life-
supporting planets in the universe, and hence, how similar aliens might be to us. A really
wonderful read, and one of my top books ever.

In his book, The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God, Rupert Sheldrake proposes some ideas about nature, the planet earth and the universe which at first look, sound interesting, but upon closer examination may seem somewhat far fetched. Many of his ideas are rooted in spiritual concepts, yet he also discusses science, its characteristics and its history. Sheldrake attempts to link scientific concepts to his ideas, while at the same time showing disdain for the scientific way of thinking, which he terms "close minded." His ideas of "morphic fields" and "formative causation" are presented without convincing evidence. At best he offers anecdotes to support his claims, which include: the idea that animals can communicate telepathically across time and space, and that crystals influence each other through "morphic resonance." Reasonable people who have some knowledge of science will likely see there are less magical explanations for the phenomenon he discusses. At the same time Sheldrake scolds the reader as "mystery intolerant" if unwilling to accept the author's assertions. Sheldrake has purposely tried to blend science, which works through well thought out experiments to lead to the development of theories, and mysticism, which allows for leaps of faith to reach beliefs. Some may find this combination refreshing, while others might view the juxtaposition of these two methods of understanding, as intrinsically incompatible. Sheldrake's end goal seems to be to convince the reader of the great value of planet earth, and the importance of living in harmony with our environment. Indeed, this concept is crucial to the future of humanity and all life. Yet many will not need Sheldrake's extraordinary theories to lead to the recognition of this great truth.

I am in a constant search for new and challenging ideas and this is one of the books that offers something truly new. The author tries to reconcile historic and scientific findings from various advanced fields with spiritual ideas for which never will be a scientific proof. The variety of presented angles makes the reading difficult at times. Ideas presented in the book may never be scientifically proofed but intuitively they just make sense.

The idea of morphic fields introduced by the author is extremely powerful. It is very interesting to think how the ultimate force in the Universe often called God can affect our lives and life of our planet through the non-local morphic fields that govern Life we know. It made the concept of God much more acceptable to logic.

This is a beautiful book. That is because Rupert Sheldrake's is a beautiful mind. This enjoyable read starts with the history of science and spirituality and their harmony for a long time until mechanistic philosophy dominated the sciences. Sheldrake talks of his own theory of morphic fields and morphic resonance, which serves as a wonderful intro to the subject for those unfamiliar with his ideas and work (of course, for a more detailed reading of his hypothesis, his book 'Morphic Resonance'/'A New Science Of Life' is a classic masterpiece!). The book talks about the evolutionary nature of 'God' rather than a Platonic notion of 'God', giving the 'God' subject a fresh perspective indeed.

If you are new to Sheldrake's work, get this book for a healthy dose of Sheldrake 101. If you are a fan like myself and familiar with his ideas, this book will only further increase your admiration for the man. I loved it!

The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God

According to Dr. Rupert Sheldrake's, "The Greening of the Rebirth of Nature, Science & God," earth's biospheric spiral of life, death, birth, and metamorphosis mirror some aspect of 'greater-consciousness-unfolding."

Before science, humans interpreted principles in nature through culture, tradition, and sacred practice.
Early science incoporated spirituality and magical thinking, which was also rooted in principles of earth conservation and preservation.

Unfortunately, conventional science and religious dogma place several degrees of separation between nature and human nature, for man's desire to control rather than understand and accept.

When we release over generalized paradigms like the law of self-preservation and survival of the fittest through natural selection, Science, once again, bears integrity, reflects Universal Truth, and surprisingly shines a guiding light onto our individual and collective karmic path.

In this book Sheldrake proposes that nature and its evolution has purpose and meaning beyond mere random mutations, natural selection, and survival. He contemplates on a deep sense of consciousness beyond what we are familiar with in traditional science, a type of consciousness that exists in all matter. I believe the author is onto something very interesting and worth exploring in the future. Toru Sato in his revolutionary book, "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" discusses this possibility from a very different perspective as well. This is perhaps the future direction of science. These books are well worth a read if you are interested in cutting edge theories on consciousness.