At the beginning of the podcast, Sheldrake says that for skeptics the "dogs that knows phenomenom" is just impossible.
I think this is a gross misrepresentation of the skeptic position. The dog waiting behavior exist. Nobody says otherwise. Skeptics thinks that a lot (if not everything of it) can be explain by he "anxiety hypothesis" and the "sensory clues hypothesis".
When we say that, how can you hear "the phenomenom doesn't exist" is beyond me. Once again, it's clear that the waiting behavior is real; the real question is how to explains it.
It's true that skeptics don't thing that Sheldrake's pet hypothesis, aka morphic field hypothesis, is a valid answer to this question, because of the many problems of that hypothesis.
But instead of tackling that issue, it was easier to use of straw man (for skeptics the phenomenom is just impossible because they are all hard-core atheists blablablablablabla ad nauseam).
I hate those straw man, but hey, it's almost "Skeptiko"'s trademark now. As soon as they are "bashing the skeptics", they're just talking about the skeptics inside their head and not the real ones. Disappointing.  |