Kirstina,
I'm sympathetic to the possibility of paranormal phenomena. In fact,
I know of some unexplained examples. But the only thing we can say
is "They're weird, and we don't know how or why they happened."
Sheldrake has not been searching evidence for 'parapsychology' as such,
as a somewhat popular stream of thinking, instead he has been lead to
investigate phenomena commonly considered paranormal. Such as
'telepathy', i.e non-local connections between minds which may have
systematically observable effects.
Investigation involves search. There have been claims about paranormal
phenomena for centuries. They fall into three categories:
1. Explainable by normal or abnormal psychology. For example, as the
result of human feelings and imagination -- sometimes delusional.
2. Deliberate fraud. Magicians are experts in creating weird effects
-- and in exposing fraudulent claims by other magicians.
3. Unexplainable by any known causes.
For #3, there have been many kinds of explanations, but none of them
can make any testable predictions. For telepathy, there are cases
where people have experienced information about a distant event that
could not have come by any known method of communication.
But nobody is able to control the telepathy or to do it on a consistent
basis (i.e., at a level above chance). That failure of control is not
a proof that telepathy does not occur. But unless telepathy can be done
at a level above chance, it cannot be distinguished from a lucky guess.
Just compare the experimental investigations by Jastrow and Peirce
with those by Sheldrake.
They are totally different. Jastrow and Peirce were doing science:
They started with observations, formed hypotheses, make predictions
about what would happen in new circumstances, performed the experiments,
and got results that confirmed their predictions.
He observed (systematicly) the workings of his own mind as well as
the workings of his dog's mind. And he experimented with both.
Sheldrake started with some observations (or claims about observations)
and formed hypotheses. But he did not make testable predictions,
perform experiments, and get results that confirmed the predictions.
And the experiments have to be performed under controlled conditions.
A dog can easily pick up subtle cues. See the case of Clever Hans:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans
As is evidenced by scattered remarks in his writings till the
end of his life.
According to Wikipedia, he's still alive:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake
From 2005 to 2010, he received funding from the Perrot-Warrick Fund:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perrott-Warrick_Fund
That fund is administered by Cambridge University. There is nothing
wrong with exploring unexplained phenomena and forming hypotheses
(guesses) about them. But guesses don't become science until they
can make reliable, repeatable, testable predictions.
John
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