Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science (2nd Edition with Update on Results) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

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. Illustrations.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Park Street Press; 2nd edition (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892819898
• ISBN-13: 978-0892819898
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #461,708 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sheldrake is a genius, December 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Seven experiments that could change the world (Paperback)

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.

4 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars He's ready to believe you..., December 5, 2007

By	M. D. Brown "Parent Educator" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

37 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Credulous author tries unsuccessfully to spark a revolution, December 15, 1997

By	Physical chemist (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seven experiments that could change the world (Paperback)

I picked up this volume because its title suggested that it would encourage hands-on science activities that are essential to good teaching and effective learning. Unfortunately, I discovered on reading it that the author combines a deep antagonism for the scientific "establishment" with credulity for numerous fringe ideas. The first experiment that he suggests tests the hypothesis that your pet uses psychic powers to tell when you'll be home for dinner! Sheldrake frequently presents anecdotes as "evidence". The "do it yourself" promise of the title is broken for the reader who doesn't intend to begin raising homing pidgeons or doesn't happen to work in a laboratory capable of measuring the physical constants (such as the speed of light) to nine significant figures. Far too few cautions about the pitfalls of psychic research are given (in chapters about the feeling of being stared at, or "feeling" the touch of a severed limb). Despite the nearly fatal flaws of the book, I liked a part of its message, that important science can still be done by amateurs. That's about the only aspect of this book that is commendable.