Sheldrake dissertation

I've posted this before, but it seems appropriate here too. This is a timeline of the Dog Who Knows... controversy which might help people understand the order that the events occurred.

1994
Sheldrake’s book “Seven Experiments that could change the World” is published in which he writes about psychic pets, and how they’d make good subjects for experiments

July 1994 – February 1995 
Preliminary experiments with Jay-Tee. Notes taken by PS’s parents.
Measure of success was a reaction at the time that Pam Smart set off on her journey home. “In 20 cases Jaytee reacted at the time PS set off, or within 2 minutes of this time” (p7 of pdf of Preliminary Investigations paper published in 1998, hosted on sheldrake.org)

November 1994 
The Science Unit of Austrian State TV filmed an experiment. Video showed Jay-tee going to the porch when PS began returning home, and staying on the porch.

1995 
Early 1995 Sheldrake invites Wiseman to attempt his own replication
Sheldrake carries out 30 observations in PS’s parents’ flat, May 1995 – July 1996
Four experiments carried out by Wiseman at PS’s parents’ house: 12 June, 13 June, and 4 December, 5 December
50 experiments carried out in PS’s own flat May 95 – Sept 97.
5 experiments at PS’s sister’s house Oct 1995 – June 1996

1996 

Wiseman presents his negative findings at the Parapsychological Association in August.
September. The Times reports that Sheldrake is about to present his findings to the Society of Companion Animal Studies.

Sheldrake meets Wiseman to discuss Wiseman's results.

“In September 1996, Wiseman and I met to discuss these findings. He raised objections to the way I had plotted the data on graphs, and suggested an improved method, dividing up the experimental period into 10-minute intervals. The graphs shown here (Figure 1) use this method suggested by Wiseman. I sent copies of these graphs to him before he and his co-authors submitted their paper to the British Journal of Psychology and suggested that they draw attention to the fact that the dog spent most time at the window while PS was actually on her way home. But they did not mention this striking effect either in their paper or when they publicized their sceptical conclusions.”  Commentary On A Paper By Wiseman, Smith And Milton On The 'Psychic Pet' Phenomenon, JSPR 63

12 Video taped randomised 'beep' experiments: 19 Nov 1996 – 8 Oct 1997

1997 
Series of 10 experiments at PS’s parents’ flat when PS was not returning July 97 to Nov 97 (ie, this period overlaps with the 12 video taped experiments)

Psychic Pets: A Survey published in JSPR 61

1998
A Dog That Seems to Know... (preliminary experiments with Jay Tee) is published in the JSPR

November 98, The Times reports on Wiseman’s findings, are published in the British Journal of Psychology.

1999 
“Commentary on a paper by Wiseman Smith and Milton...” written by Sheldrake is published in JSPR 63

2000 
Results of randomised video taped dog trials published in JSE 14
Wiseman, Smith and Milton's reply to Sheldrake is published in JSPR 64

Well it's an opinion, but not one I share.

One could just use a threshold triggered criteria... so that if Jaytee's time at the window without obvious cause (i.e. cat/vomiting etc), exceeded 1/3 of any rolling 10 minute period, you could say with some certainly that Pam had either... already set off, or, predict she would set off with 10 minutes. Then you could test that hypothesis.

That doesn't sound at all post hoc.

Linda

That's quite a suggestion. I suspect you will find that when the Ministry of Unnecessary Research declares that psychic pet research falls under that category, there will be a considerable outcry from the parapyschology community at the very least.


The popular press is a piss poor source of scientific information, though. That isn't Richard Wiseman's fault.


That's a pretty pathetic example. He somewhat misremembers something once and he's suddenly a liar? People misremember stuff all the time in informal interviews, including parapsychologists/proponents who have offered up much worse examples. The courteous thing to do would be to give them a break, especially when their written work offered in reference is accurate.

Huh? On his website he accurately describes Sheldrake's role in the process, including links to Sheldrake's blog (although the link is now broken, but that would be Sheldrake who moved the link, not Wiseman).


So your complaint is that it is Wiseman's job to toot Sheldrake's horn for him? Offering references to Sheldrake's work isn't enough?

These are pretty empty complaints. At this point, considering how appallingly Wiseman has been treated, he has shown remarkable patience. A lesser person would have lashed out at Sheldrake or ignored him altogether.

Linda

Something can be necessary, or important, or interesting, and not be immediately so.

Whether the public press is a poor source of scientific information isn't the point. The point is that most people learn about these things through the press, not through academic journals, and it's in the press that Wiseman has been at his most misleading. He's a popular media figure in the UK, or at least was at the time, with plenty of access to the popular press and no hesitation about using it. To be fair, Sheldrake is no less enthusiastic or skilled at working the public press, albeit with fewer sympathetic mainstream outlets in the UK.

In the early 1990s, Mathew Smith, Julie Milton, and I investigated ‘Jaytee’, a dog who could allegedly psychically predict when his owner was returning home.
We believed that the results of our study did not support the dog’s alleged ability, and published our results in the British Journal of Psychology. You can read this paper here.
At roughly the same time, Rupert Sheldrake (RS) conducted additional work with Jaytee. RS criticised the study conducted by Mathew Smith, Julie Milton and myself. You can read his paper here. We subsequently replied to the points raised in this critique (paper here), and RS replied to our reply (paper here).

Once again, that's a misleading statement, implying two independent projects with no relation to each other, which isn't what happened. Given that this is a write-up on his website, with links to contradictory records, you can't excuse that as "misremembering," and since this distortion matches other public statements he made, I'm inclined to see this as a pattern of dishonesty, and not to "give him a break."

And no, I don't expect Wiseman to "toot Sheldrake's horn," nor do I think I've ever suggested that. I've already said, several times, what my issue is: he's distorted the timeline of events and implied (sometimes outright claimed) that these studies were independent and unrelated, despite the reality of the situation and Wiseman's own academic papers. Since you're obviously not changing your mind on that, and I'm obviously not changing mine, and I'd rather this whole thread not be largely eaten up by an increasingly frustrated and temperamental back-and-forth over a single aspect of the dissertation, this is the last I have to say about it.

Since you're obviously not changing your mind on that, and I'm obviously not changing mine, and I'd rather this whole thread not be largely eaten up by an increasingly frustrated and temperamental back-and-forth over a single aspect of the dissertation, this is the last I have to say about it.

That is, and always has been, her MO. She will continue until she gets the last word - her ego won't allow you that.

Once again, that's a misleading statement, implying two independent projects with no relation to each other, which isn't what happened.

Actually, I think it implies that Wiseman was the primary investigator, and that Sheldrake followed up Wiseman's work, but that's by the by. Taken at face value, that statement isn't factually incorrect.

I hope that timeline helped you. What is clear is that when Wiseman publicised his results, there were no graphs in 10-minute sections and the criteria of success was when Jay-tee reacted. Since Wiseman has writen about how parapsychologists change the criteria of success over time (I believe the paper is called "Heads I win, Tails you lose") I'd guess that he considers this episode in the same vein.

Something can be necessary, or important, or interesting, and not be immediately so.

Exactly. So the suggestion that some research can be designated "unimportant" a priori, such that some sort of arbitrary "courtesy" rules are applied to publication order in these cases only, is specious.

Whether the public press is a poor source of scientific information isn't the point. The point is that most people learn about these things through the press, not through academic journals, and it's in the press that Wiseman has been at his most misleading. He's a popular media figure in the UK, or at least was at the time, with plenty of access to the popular press and no hesitation about using it. To be fair, Sheldrake is no less enthusiastic or skilled at working the public press, albeit with fewer sympathetic mainstream outlets in the UK.

You are trying to hold Wiseman responsible for what he described as:

"We were, nevertheless, appalled at the way in which some of the newspaper items portrayed PS, and RW wrote to both RS and PS to express his dismay at the wording used by the journalists in these articles. However, we are not responsible for the way in which the media reported our paper and believe that these issues are best raised with the journalists involved."

Were I to attempt this with Sheldrake - holding him responsible for statements he didn't write and which he found appalling - would you seriously consider agreeing with me?

Once again, that's a misleading statement, implying two independent projects with no relation to each other, which isn't what happened. Given that this is a write-up on his website, with links to contradictory records, you can't excuse that as "misremembering," and since this distortion matches other public statements he made, I'm inclined to see this as a pattern of dishonesty, and not to "give him a break."

But what he said was accurate - Sheldrake had done some preliminary work and went on to do some additional work, which he started at roughly the same time as Wiseman's project. Even if it wasn't clear exactly what was meant by the summary statement (additional to Wiseman's work or additional to Sheldrake's work), the links clarify this. At this point, your complaint is that you would have worded a sentence in Wiseman's statement slightly differently. And because of that, Wiseman is dishonest.

Again, were I to attempt this with Sheldrake (and there is plenty in his writing that I think needs to be worded differently), would you seriously consider agreeing with me?

And no, I don't expect Wiseman to "toot Sheldrake's horn," nor do I think I've ever suggested that. I've already said, several times, what my issue is: he's distorted the timeline of events and implied (sometimes outright claimed) that these studies were independent and unrelated, despite the reality of the situation and Wiseman's own academic papers. Since you're obviously not changing your mind on that, and I'm obviously not changing mine, and I'd rather this whole thread not be largely eaten up by an increasingly frustrated and temperamental back-and-forth over a single aspect of the dissertation, this is the last I have to say about it.

I'll leave you to think on the questions I raised above. If I was claiming that Sheldrake was dishonest and misleading on the basis of the kind of empty examples you have offered for Wiseman (and there are plenty of examples of Sheldrake doing worse), would you seriously agree with me that Sheldrake was a liar?

Linda

I contacted Philip, and he has kindly given permission for a copy of his dissertation to be hosted here. He has also provided a version which he thinks is more complete than the one that used to be available at Skeptiko, which lacked pictures.

Do you know yet if the copy he's providing is more complete only in including pictures, or was the text revised as well?

That is, and always has been, her MO. She will continue until she gets the last word - her ego won't allow you that.

These discussions turn personal far too often for my liking, and I don't care to see this one follow suit.

Do you know yet if the copy he's providing is more complete only in including pictures, or was the text revised as well?

The only difference he mentioned was the pictures. I haven't compared the text for differences.