Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bailey  Chris,
I started a detailed reply to you and then thought maybe I would go back and re-read Shaldrake's paper. This reminded me of the fact that he is a trained scientist, and the care and caution with which he explored this phenomenon shines out all through the paper. I would ask anyone who has been following this discussion to read the actual paper:
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History is full of trained scientists who have fallen to conformation bias. Blondlot was a respected scientist with numerous prestigious prizes in physics before he "discovered" N-rays. Most working scientists have fooled themselves at times. With any luck they discuss their work with colleagues before they present their work to the wider scientific community. Some scientists become too attached to their own ideas and make the transition to crank. The worst thing that they can do is to surround themselves by a small circle of people who either cannot see the problems in the pseudotheory or don't want to.
There is a monumental inequality between the magnitude of Sheldrake's claims and the magnitude and quality of the evidence that he presents to support it.
I've taken the time to suggest some strategies that might actually lead to progress in understanding the observed phenomenon of "dogs that know". Frankly, I can only conclude that you, and Sheldrake for that matter, are not really interested in understanding the phenomenon but are more interested in find support for your own preconceived ideas.
Here are my psychic predictions.
Sheldrake will never formulate what "morphic resonance" is beyond the current vague tenuous pseudotheory.
Sheldrake will continue to perform experiments and find confirmation(bias) for "morphic resonance".
Sheldrake will be ignored by the scientific community because of the grand inequity between the magnitude of his claims and the quality of his evidence.