SHELDRAKE VERSUS ROSE - CHRONOBIOLOGY IS THE WINNER

Two opponents - R. Sheldrake and S. Rose - surprisingly agreed to perf orm experiments testing the hypothesis of the former about ''formative causation'' (''morphic resonance''). It predicts that as animals lear n a new pattern of behaviour, other similar ones will tend to learn th e same thing more readily. Experiments on chicks pecking neutral and u npleasant objects were evaluated in terms of latency of pecking for ei ther stimulus. According to Sheldrake's theory, the latency time for t he nociceptive stimulus should become successively longer during the t ime span of the experiments before own unpleasant experience of the an imals in test. Appropriate chronobiometrical processing of the obtaine d data does not contradict this hypothesis. Moreover, approximately ci rcadiseptan and circatrigintan periodicities in pecking behaviour were identified.