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Originally Posted by Chris Noble 
I suspect that the vast majority of these cases are explained by the animal hearing the car and problems remembering misses vs hits. I certainly can't be expected to explain your case on the information you have given.
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This example is interesting for a number of reasons:
a) We both assumed that out pet sat waiting for us for hours because he was there waiting for us when we turned up.
b) I was totally skeptical when our neighbour told us that he sat in her house and asked to be let out shortly before we turned up. The extra time involved in all that makes it much less plausible that he could hear our car (a very common make) at least a couple of minutes away.
Although Sheldrake estimates that only about one third of cats behave in this way (as opposed to 50% of dogs), maybe cats would be better subjects because they often find themselves a 'second choice' residence, as our did!
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Originally Posted by Chris Noble If the dog really does this every time then you would have a point. Your suggestion of going the other way and tightening controls would be better.
If the dog really does this every time then Alex would not have a problem with defining a hit as starting the behaviour within 2 minutes of the beginning of the return journey.
I think it is obvious that the dog isn't doing this every time. |
I don't think Alex would have shown us this video if it were not reasonably typical - from what he says, he has been busy trawling for dogs that can do this to order. I know you think Alex has 'gone native' but I tend to think he is like me - he would really like to know the answer!
I think we basically agree that if the signal is strong enough, it is more important to concentrate on eliminating extraneous ways that the dog could know - or other possible artefacts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Noble
This is the root of all problems. There is no theory of morphic resonance or "psi" that makes specific predictions. Psi is defined entirely by what it isn't. Morphic resonance is just the same. It's all about asserting that some phenomenon cannot be explained by any natural means. The only way to prove "psi" or "morphic resonance" is by eliminating all natural explanations. As all natural explanations are not known this effectively makes it impossible.
"Psi" and "morphic resonance" cannot be controlled. You can't do some trials with "psi" turned on and some with "psi" turned off. If you could and the dog's performance was better with "psi" then you could conclude that "psi" explains at least part of the phenomenon.
As it is not possible to do this the only thing you can do is explicitly test natural explanations.
Do some trials with the owner returning in their own car and another set with the owner returning in a different car (randomised return times and other controls the same for both set). If the dog's performance is better when the owner returns in their own car then we can conclude that some of the effect can be explained by the dog hearing the car approaching. Even better by comparing these sets of trials you could get a good idea of how far the dog can hear the car. If there is only a difference in the last 3 miles then you can conclude that the dog can only hear the car from less than approximately 3 miles.
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I would say that a tentative 'theory of Ψ' (or at least much of it) is that some information can leak from individual to individual (human or otherwise) by non-physical means.
It is true that we can't turn Ψ on and off - which makes experiments more difficult - but that is true in many other areas of science - vulcanology, astrophysics, etc. but that does not prevent progress.
Clearly one thing that limits these experiments is the patience of the owners, and the time involved. Sheldrake may not have had the luxury to vary every possible factor exhaustively. This is why I think it would help if a little more money were available for this sort of research.
Suppose that Alex arranged for a few trials in which someone else drove Jane's car home. If that produced a negative result, would you feel that the issue of car sound - which I agree is important - had been adequately dealt with? I think this would be a better test than Jane returning in a different car, because a clear response to the 'wrong' person driving home would be very informative.
Since I guess different people drive the same car in different ways, another option would be to have a few trials in which Jane drove to within 500 yards, and then drove off. If the dog went into anticipation mode, this might be a bit ambiguous, but if he did not respond until later when she really came back, it would be pretty decisive.
I would rather Alex's experiment failed to find a Ψ effect than that he 'found' a false one. In that, I think you, I and Alex are in complete agreement.
As I say, I strongly suspect there is a genuine effect here - so prepare yourself for a possible change of world view!
David