A simple telepathy test: which word did I write?

It's interesting to follow this discussion though I feel sometimes the tone has tended to be rather too combative for my taste. These tests have been conducted at intervals for quite a number of years now, I think I was more critical, at least in my own thoughts, to begin with (several years ago). Nowadays I simply consider the test on its own terms, 'it is what it is' rather than as an example of something else.

Perhaps it's that in my own life I experience unexpected phenomena when I'm definitely not looking to conduct any sort of study, instead things simply happen, they present themselves to me, hence I don't feel any great urgency or need to constrain or formalise things too much.

This particular style of test is interesting to me because it has some informality and that is for me at least beneficial. My curiosity has increased I think as time goes on. I'm quite capable of taking a disinterested and non-committal look at the results and the way in which they are evaluated. It isn't that I agree (or disagree) with the conclusions, more the case that I just think, well let's see where this leads.

I have a great respect for Sheldrake's work, but really I have no way of verifying his data on animal telepathy.

That applies, of course, to just about any experimental report in a journal - you have no idea if the author really did the experiment, or whether it produced the results claimed!

I'd like to see conventional science held to higher standards to avoid faud/carelessness, and then people can use the same standard whether the experiment is paranormal or not.

Note that Sheldrake was a director of studies at Cambridge University before he began unorthodox research. He definitely knows how to perform a well controlled experiment!

David

It isn't that I agree (or disagree) with the conclusions, more the case that I just think, well let's see where this leads.

This is where science is flawed when it comes to parapsychology and related subjects. Other scientists read a report and immediately think of ways to try to prove it wrong, rather than asking where such work might lead.

Also, if you take a piece of work as true - and try to build on it, you may well discover that it is false if that is indeed the case.

David