Wiseman n'a pas "utilisé" exactement la même méthode mais l'a raffinée. Il ne s'en est pas trop écarté, pour trois raisons:
- reproduire l'expérience de Sheldrake. Ce test devrait toujours être fait.
- parce qu'il n'y en a pas d'adaptée à ce que Sheldrake voulait prouver.
- parce que Wiseman s'attendait à soutenir les conclusions de Sheldrake
"Wiseman, whose findings were published in the British Journal of Psychology (1998), failed to find any evidence that Jaytee [le nom du chien "télépathe"] had an extrasensory ability to predict his owner's return.
Contary to the rhetoric floating around, the field of parapsychology is
getting a fair hearing from psychologists like Richard Wiseman and Susan
Blackmore in England, and Ray Hyman in the United States. The fact is that despite the hype this field of research continually fails to produce reliable, repeatable results."
(Kevin Christopher, Public Relations Director, Skeptical Inquirer; http://www.csicop.org/list/listarchive/msg00168.html )
La leçon à tirer de cette histoire est que quand un scientifique non auto-proclamé se mêle d'investiguer une assertion paranormale faite par un pseudo-scientifique, celle-ci se révèle peu solide. Même si le scientifique est enclin à approuver le pseudo.
Sheldrake croit faire de la science, et est capable d'en persuader certain, mais a de gros problèmes:
- avec la méthodologie (ref. ci-dessous)
- avec les statistiques ( http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-09/staring.html )
- a déterminer ce qui est empirique de ce qui ne l'est pas (sa théorie des champs morhognétiques, par ex.)
Jean-François
Wiseman R, Smith M, Milton J. (1998) Can animals detect when their owners are returning home? An experimental test of the 'psychic pet' phenomenon. Br J Psychol 1998 Aug;89( Pt 3):453-462
In his book, Seven Experiments That Could Change The World, Rupert Sheldrake suggested that the public carry out experiments to test whether pets can psychically detect when their owners are returning home. The first of these tests was undertaken by an Austrian television company and involved an owner in the north-west of England, Pam Smart (PS) and her dog (Jaytee). The test appeared remarkably successful and seemed to show Jaytee responding when PS set off to return home from a remote location. Rupert Sheldrake and PS asked the authors if they would like to carry out their own investigation into Jaytee's abilities. This paper outlines various 'normal' explanations that might account for the phenomenon and presents an experimental design that minimizes these possibilities. The paper then details the procedure and results of four experiments. Analysis of the data did not support the hypothesis that Jaytee could psychically detect when his owner was returning home. Finally, the paper discusses a possible reason for the difference in results of these studies and those carried out by the Austrian television company.
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