Morphic Resonance

Sheldrake's heresy: nature remembers. Once one rat learns the maze, all rats learn faster.

Sheldrake's hypothesis ('A New Science of Life,' 1981 — greeted by Nature's editor with 'a book for burning?', a documented editorial) proposes nature's regularities are memory-like habits. Claimed supports (crystal melting-point drift, rat-learning transfer across labs) are documented in his books; independent tests (the 1990s telepathy and staring experiments, per skeptical reviews) show weak, contested effects. Its scientific status is marginal; its file status is the suppression-narrative exhibit — the Nature editorial did more for the theory's persistence than its data. Links the hundredth monkey and noosphere.