Seven Experiments That Could Change the World

How does your pet know when you're coming home? Can people really tell when they're being stared at? Can science explain the unexplainable? Celebrated biologist Rupert Sheldrake explores such questions in this compelling, intelligent book--and with simple, inexpensive experiments, the curious and the skeptical are invited to join him on this journey of discovery in the true spirit of science. A specialist in biochemistry and cell biology formerly at Cambridge University, Sheldrake questions many tenets of the mechanistic-materialistic orthodoxy governing most science today and proposes certain practical experiments to raise further doubts about it. He presents experiments by which we can determine how some pets know when their owners are coming home, how homing pigeons find their way, how insect colonies operate, how people know that they are being stared at from behind and how phantom limbs sometimes seem to amputees to be still attached. Then he turns to the more abstract area of the philosophy of science, pointing out that the fundamental "constants" of nature are not really constant and that the so-called experimenter expectancy effect may skew the results of any test. Finally, he offers details of experiments by which even those who are not trained scientists can measure some of these possibly paranormal phenomena. A well-reasoned, accessible and provocative book.

ISBN: 1573225649