Rupert Sheldrake and tits (was: RE: [UA] What Do You Beleive?)

[Chris Milne]

He is in fact, a total fruitcake. That's MHO anyhow. I saw him give a 
presentation at a "wacky-biologist-conference" in Cambridge once, and 
it was utterly impenetrable. Someone asked him to clarify some aspect 
of it, and his reply was essentially "nobody can understand this but 
me, because I am more intelligent than anyone else". Felt that that 
was a rather interesting attitude for a self-proclaimed scientist.

As for the monkeys (with the salted potatoes and the arthritis), I'm 
pretty sure that they were Japanese macaques. I've also heard that 
they've learnt to cook potatoes in the aforementioned hot springs, 
but I suspect that may simply be a case of someone combining the two 
other reports. Bonobos are also interesting - one of my friends at 
uni was hoping to go off and do his PhD on them (at the time there 
was some debate over whether they had developed their own language). 
Unfortunately, I've lost touch and so know no more.

On to blue tits. James McGraw has summed up the situation fairly 
well, I think. Certainly, regular access to the cream that is found 
at the top of bottles of full-fat milk would be a significant 
advantage to a blue tit. I'd be interested to know how the general 
decline in consumption of full-fat milk and the reduction in use of 
"traditional" milk rounds in Britain has affected this behaviour.

In terms of reading recommendations, I can only humbly state that 
keeping an open mind is vital in evolutionary biology. If you think 
the creation vs evolution argument is heated, then you have to 
experience a "Gouldian" arguing with a "Dawkinsian". I can't honestly 
recall reading any recent book on the subject that didn't get itself 
involved in that argument somewhere along the line.

Lame ObUA: Gould and Dawkins as rival Avatars? (Truly pathetic, even 
by my standards  :-)


Chris Milne


Kevin Mowery wrote:
>     Me, I believe that Rupert Sheldrake is a buffoon.  He's never 
really
> proved morphic resonance to anyone's satisfaction but his own.  But
> it does make it easy to explain both Scooby Doo and Planet of the 
Apes.
>
> Kevin Mowery________ kemowery at earthlink.net

_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua