Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bailey  Even if your view of reality turns out to be correct, you absolutely need people like Radin, Sheldrake, and Alex pushing forward awkward data. |
I do agree with that. Well, if I didn't at least agree that fring scientists play a role in the dynamics of scientific inquiry (even when they are wrong), I wouldn't be listening to skeptiko...
By the way, about the interview, once again Alex tricked the skeptic. I mean, Alex, could you please tell those guys beforehand that you're a pro-Ψ and that you think that Sheldrake's dog experiments are proof that Ψ do exist?
And not coming to that while you're talking to them during the interview, and so taking them of-guard?
(Well, thanks to you I now know that if I agree for an interview I MUST listen before to at least a few previous episode just to know where the host stands... In that regard, listening to Skeptiko has been a learning experience.)
Especially here, you're doing that again, and on top of that, you give to the guy a paper to read for the next week, but when he's criticising the paper you gave him, then you switch to other papers. Come on. That's just not fair play. Tell him:
"I expect you for next week to know by heart every single papers Sheldrake published on that or I will say that you're a close-minded skeptics".
Thanks in advance.
By the way, that beg the question: why didn't you give him the best experiment Sheldrake did, the one without any flaws? Oh, yeah, I know, all the researchs are just so messy. He didn't control everything in any single experiment. He just control one thing in one experiment, and then an other thing in another one, and so on. Make sense.
Come on. If you really think that what Sheldrake did is perfect, please send to your guest the best experiment, without any flaws (according to you).
Also, about giving cues to the dogs, did Sheldrake ever do an experiment (a) without only an owner (and nobody else in the house at that period), (b) controlling for the clothes (simple: that person has to put the same clothes every time he/she goes out, and can't take anything with he/she - no bag, no umbrella, and so on, (b) true randomization (the owner could come back at any time, even during the night...) a lot of time?
Well, we know he didn't.
You're claiming that Sheldrake protocole prevents the other people to know at what time the owner is coming back, but as it was pointed out in this interview, it's not because Sheldrake says that he controlled that that it was really the case.
The best way to deal with that issue is to have nobody else in the house. You need an owner who is living alone.