emphryio

Anybody know much about this? I understand the theory and have read Sheldrake's seven experiments book and been to his website occasionally.

But does anyone have any "goods" on this guy? Is he just another fraud? He talks a bit much about spiritual crap and some of his experiments don't seem particularly sound. But on the other hand he did some stuff with some animals being somehow linked with their owners and unless he was lying it looked interesting.

But now I haven't heard anything on him or his morphic resonance theory in quite awhile.

Anybody?

graden1

I think there was an article about this guy in Discover magazine a couple of years ago. The impression I got was that he was pretty much a complete flake. I stopped reading Discover for a while after that....

Grady

[ February 24, 2002: Message edited by: graden1 ]</p>

Malaclypse the Younger

IIRC, the "Hundreth Monkey" experiment (for which Sheldrake's theories were constructed to explain) was found to have not actually occurred.

emphryio

If he really did lie about the monkeys, I don't think you can feel particulary confident about the results of any of his other experiments.

I'd like to know how you heard the hundredth monkey thing didn't actually occur, Malaclypse?

Malaclypse the Younger

<a href="http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/btcarrol/skeptic/monkey.html" target="_blank">the hundredth monkey phenomenon</a> on the Skeptic's Dictionary.

Francois Tremblay

The team leader of the original experiment himself denied that any "100th monkey phenomenon" took place. It was just made up. So much for that !

emphryio

Thanks for the links.

But I must say that they don't quite clear things up. For one, Sheldrake never remotely talked about any critical mass point being reached. If you read, "The Hundredth Monkey Revisited", at the bottom of the first link, you should see what I mean.

Also it kind of sounds like you're all saying that Sheldrake is guilty by association. He talks about morhic resonance, these nutbags are talking about it. Therefore Sheldrake must be a nut.

Also he did talk about this 100 monkey thing, but did it ever occur to you guys that he may have been repeating what he heard also and didn't know it wasn't true? Also his morphic resonance is based on many more experiments of his own.

I dimly remember Sheldrake did talk about some stuff about the entire earth being connected in an almost spiritual sense. I don't like it when scientists start talking spiritual. But that doesn't automatically mean that all his experiments are bunk.

Now of course, I guess its still possible he lied about his own research. And its still possible he knew the 100 monkey thing wasn't true. But I can't dismiss him out of hand as easily as you guys seem to be able to.