World Famous Comics: Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science (2nd Edition with Update on Results)
Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science (2nd Edition with Update on Results)
By: Rupert Sheldrake Publisher: Park Street Press Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Park Street Press Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 320 Publication Date: July 30, 2002 Release Date: July 01, 2002
Product Description: Examines the realities of unexplained natural phenomenon and provides explanations that push the boundaries of science.
• Looks at animal telepathy and the ability of pigeons to home.
• Proves the point that "big questions don't need big science".
• Noted scientist Rupert Sheldrake is a former research fellow of the Royal Society.
• New Edition with an Update on Results.
How does your pet "know" when you are coming home? How do pigeons "home"? Can people really feel a "phantom" amputated arm? These questions and more form the basis of Sheldrake's look at the world of contemporary science as he puts some of the most cherished assumptions of established science to the test. What Sheldrake discovers is that certain scientific beliefs are so widely taken for granted that they are no longer regarded as theories but are seen as scientific common sense. In the true spirit of science, Sheldrake examines seven of these beliefs. Refusing to let intellectual dogmatism influence his search for the truth, Sheldrake presents simple experiments that allow the curious and the skeptical to join in his journey of discovery. His experiments look at how scientific research is often biased against unexpected patterns that emerge and how a researcher's expectations can influence the results. He also examines the taboo of taking pets seriously and explores the question of human extrasensory perception. Perhaps most important, he questions the notion that science must be expensive in order to achieve important results, showing that inexpensive methods can indeed shake the very foundations of science as we know it.
In this compelling and intelligent book, Sheldrake offers no preconceived wisdom or easy answers--just an open invitation to explore the unknown, create new science, and perhaps, even change the world.
Amazon.com Review: I consider myself an open-minded person, but I tend to become itchy and skeptical when I encounter most books about the "unexplained"--there are just too many secret Soviet laboratories, mysterious disappearances (of the phenomena, and the investigators and data for that matter). And, I must admit, I've was somewhat skeptical of Sheldrake's previous books on "morphic resonance".
But being an open-minded person, I am glad when I can change my mind, and I am glad to report that this is a worthy book--because of its practicality. Sheldrake confronts some of the outstanding questions facing "PSIence"--and proposes level-headed experiments that readers themselves can become engaged in. Science has often made its greatest advances not when areas of the unknown were summarily dismissed--but when a proper balance between paradigm shifts and experimentation fell into place. It is conceivable that books such as this may help with the evolution of PSI to science.
He's ready to believe you... That the author is willing to entertain the possibility of something readily dismissed by the scientific establishment is neither uncommon nor a negative. That the author openly scorns the majority of solid evidence is favor of anecdotes, rumors and small studies of dubious quality is certainly a problem. So your dog seems to have some sort of "sixth sense" that your partner is about to come home. Interesting. Let's study that. Our dog "knew" when I was coming home... until we got a new car, we think she might have heard our older car's transmission working on the hill at the bottom of our street. Sheldrake would embrace the first half as "data" and dismiss the later finding as "blind skepticism". That a perfectly reasonable explanation might exist should certainly be the first recourse, but our author prefers the "world changing" hypothesis that Rover had ESP. Whether or not there is any real-world basis for psi is the topic and our author generally WANTS to believe it. My approach would involve: - examining known phenomena (such as our dog's better-than-human hearing) - finding them wanting (as would have been the case if she reacted to me coming home in the new car) - examining other possible theories (did I get home around the same time each day? did my partner remember the apparent successes and forget the times Rover missed the boat?) - then speculate - then test the speculation... The author STARTS with the speculation: - assumes all apparently related phenomina will have ONE cause (Rover's behavior has the same source as Fifi and Fido's behavior) - takes anecdotes as tests of the speculation - finds individual cases that seem to challenge more conventional explanations (maybe finding Fido is deaf and therefore could not have heard a car's transmission and Fifi's owner came home at different times each day) - assumes this destroys the conventional explanations (despite the possibility that Fido had a good sense of time AND Fifi had good hearing...) - assumes the unsupported theory MUST be right. Heck, we have as much evidence for my dog having ESP as we do for the CIA beaming information from sattelites into my dog's brain. Maybe fairies live in the bushes at the bottom of the hill and wisper the information to the Gnomes who send runners to tell Rover... Or the ghost of Rover's dead mother is telling her... Maybe aliens are deliberately corrupting our memories of Rover's behavior to convince us that science is all junk... Who knows? Certainly not Sheldrake.
SCIENTIFIC SHADOW BOXING Neither a skeptic nor a believer in science, the author was searching for an opponent to box with -- more like friendly sparring. His theory of morphic resonance states that all matter and energy is governed or shaped by some sort of evolutionary habit or cumulative memory. If his perspective were broader he would fit in with David Bohm and other science mystics, but Rupert chose to fence himself in the "little science" surrounding pet dogs, homing pigeons, migrating birds, termite colonies, phantom limbs, evil eyes, and the placebo effect. Why Rupert thinks that clearcut experimental results in these areas of anecdotal, imaginative tall tales would support his morphic field theory, I haven't a clue. What is more likely is that these animals and insects have the hidden ability to detect Gaia's gravitational curved space (much like air and ship LORAN navigators read lines of position).
The author was forever hinting that chaos theory, Jung's collective unconscious or other ideas would someday reveal the whole story without telling what that would gain us (for instance, if we accepted that the fundamental constants were slightly variable). Although I would encourage new viewpoints such as morphic fields to shape the matter of the universe, I was left with the impression that this writer bit off way more than his dog could chew.
Seven Experiments that could change the world I thought that this book gave an intriguing insight into our world, and that it brings up topics that i would never have even thought about had i not read this book. 5 stars for Rupert Sheldrake. He has an unparalleled mind when it comes to evolutionary science
Perfection This is quietly on of the most influential books of the century. It is accelerating the rightfull and belated death of Scientism, the AMA, and the FDA.
Sheldrake is a genius Okay, I do not have much time to respond but I just had to voice some opposition to the single reader review this book has posted. Sure, the experiments outlined are a bit more involved than your run of the mill fourth grade level chemical mixing but they are that much more involved. Sheldrake does not provide many answers but the ones he does provide are exceptionally enlightening. He does something even more important though; he demonstrates that nobody out their in the scientific community really has all the answers they claim to. Steven Hawking may be really smart, but it is Sheldrake who future generations will recognize as the man of our time whose ideas were well beyong his time.
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