from the whoa...-creepy dept
Despite the ongoing advance of science there remain plenty of unsolved mysteries, and it's not uncommon for people to try filling in these gaps with non-scientific or pseudo-scientific answers. One of the more well-known proponents arguing that conventional science can't explain many phenomena is British scientist Rupert Sheldrake. Much of his work revolves around seemingly paranormal subjects, like the ability of dogs to know when their owners are coming home. Many people report that their dog always seems to be waiting at the door for them after work and through his studies he claims to have shown that this more than just the dog hearing the car come down the street, or the dog knowing what time of day its owner usually gets home. Another one he's fond of is the experience -- that we've all had -- of thinking about a person the second before getting a phone call from them. He's recently conducted new studies on this subject that purport to that this phenomenon is more than mere chance. But his latest study is based on a very small sample size (just 63 participants), and just 4 of the participants were videotaped. Chance could very well have played a part, as could other clues, like participants' prior knowledge of who would call them when. Charges that Sheldrake's experiments are poorly designed have been levelled at him throughout his career. A moment of extreme coincidence can feel very strange, perhaps even like clairvoyance, but trying to demonstrate them and show major cracks in conventional science seems doomed to fail. Sheldrake says he hopes to try his experiment next with text messages; we're guessing he'll be able to produce the same results.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20060905/122936.shtml
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