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Animal Telepathy Controversy – Did a Leading Skeptic Really Debunk a ‘Psychic Pet’?

‘Maverick biologist’ Rupert Sheldrake has had more than his fair share of run-ins with skeptics over the years, based on his research into psi, animal telepathy, morphic resonance and more. One rather public battle was with skeptic Richard Wiseman, regarding Sheldrake’s experiments with a dog named Jaytee, who seemed to know when his owner was on their way home:

Richard Wiseman is a conjurer and professional Skeptic based at the University of Hertfordshire in England, where he is Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology. He replicated Rupert Sheldrake’s results with Jaytee, a dog that knew when his owner was coming home, obtaining positive, statistically significant results, and then claimed that he had refuted this dogs abilities! Read a summary of this long-lasting controversy, with links to Rupert’s and Richard Wiseman’s papers and articles on this subject.

Rupert Sheldrake has now posted the video above to his website, in which Jaytee’s owner, Pam Smart – who was rather unfairly treated by media outlets in the wake of Richard Wiseman’s debunking – discusses the controversy from her point of view.

For more on this topic, see Rupert Sheldrake’s book Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home (Amazon US/Amazon UK).

And while on Sheldrake-skeptic related matters, interested readers might like to check out this dialogue between Rupert Sheldrake and skeptic Michael Shermer, which recently played out over the course of a couple of months.

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