Do you believe animals have these powers?

Question

http://www.sheldrake.org/papers/Animals/index.html

Please try to read at least one excerpt and comment on it.

Answer 1

I believe animals may be able to perceive things that we cannot like different ranges of light and sound, but I don't think that they can do anything psychic or magical.

I see the author of the first article prefers the 'magical' explanation though.

"

No one knows how some animals sense earthquakes coming. Perhaps they pick up subtle sounds or vibrations in the earth; maybe they respond to subterranean gases released prior to earthquakes, or react to changes in the Earth's electrical field. They may also sense in advance what is about to happen in a way that lies beyond current scientific understanding, through some kind of presentiment. "

On any given day a certain percentage of animals are going to be walking up hills, hiding, barking etc to look back after the event has occurred and say that Fido was barking an hour before the earthquake came therefore he must have known it was about to happen is not very good science.

Answer 2

I know dogs have some sort of insight, as well as other animals. I think they can see spirits, and  predict disaster.

Did you see how the frogs had went into the streets right before the China earthquake ? It looked like millions of them. It was reported that they were sensing the quake.

Answer 3

Yes, animals have been identified with psychic powers.  The order of sensitivities in animals - horse, cat (domestic), dog (domestic) then the wild varities, monkey, etc.

Answer 4

If God gives man the power of speech and reason. Then perhaps animals have their own too from our Creator. In the human realm, many things are just mystery that even our expertise cannot understand those things but in God's way all of it are for balance of everything.

Answer 5

I'll comment on two.The animals and tsunami thing is just false.I saw plenty of dead animals on the videos.Here's a link explaining it better.Another element to the tsunami.No animals were waiting to see the wave or trying to video it.Animals will not stick around looking for friends and family.

Second the animals knowing when you're coming home.I think it has more to do with their senses,like hearing.My dog gets excited when my car is blocks away.She hears it and knows dinner is coming.She doesn't react to my wife's car until it's in the garage.The dog also gets exited when my car is coming and my wife is driving it.Even though I'm right there.If you observe animals it becomes obvious.They're using the powers nature gave them.In my mind calling it paranormal,diminishes them.

Answer 6

Since the animals themselves can't respond, we're relying on the reporting of their owners.  Of course this will be subjective, biased reporting, with the respondent giving an answer that carries with it a lot of baggage--belief systems, world view, affection for a pet, etc.  (Imagine if someone called as asked you if your children are special.)  As such, any results obtained from a telephone interview must be taken with a grain of salt.

Answer 7

yeah I do believe the only thing I disagree with is that the cats simply dont care when their owners are coming home or they would have had a better % rate :)

Answer 8

i know that animals sense danger hours or days before major disasters. my dog senses or hears thunder storms hours before. i know this cause she wont go outside even if you give her a treat or try pick her up.

Answer 9

Rupert Sheldrake (link below) is a very reputable biologist and his work while controversial is generally very well done.

To his credit he holds the skeptics accountable for their sloppy and dishonest attacks on his work (link below).

Yes, I believe there is supporting evidence that meets the criteria for any other experiments in biology to support the hypothesis of ESP in animals.

Thank you for providing this interesting and informative link to the parapsychology section.

Psi

Answer 10

Sheldrake is a scientist (biochemist to be specific) by education and degree, yet to me he seems to have abandoned critical reasoning for magical thinking in much of what he does. I'm familiar with Sheldrake, but I did peruse a few of those links as you asked. He posted about animals sensing tsunami in a non-paranormal journal, but stopped short of attributing it to psychic sensing. And I would have liked better documentation that animals unaware of the unusual behavior of the ocean (the drastic pull back of the water level preceding the tsunami) still moved to higher ground regardless. Animals are usually wary of unexpected sights/sounds, so it's unreasonable to attribute their exodus to psychic sensing if they are aware of strange things happening at the beach.

He bickered with skeptics over the dog that sensed when its master was coming home, but this is only typical for Sheldrake. I would have liked to read the skeptic's debunking of his results but there wasn't an active link to it. Sheldrake's results usually are controversial, and as all too typical of parapsychology, they always seem to be mired in dubious statistics and methods.

Regarding Sheldrake's magical thinking, here is a fun example. When faced with irreproducible results from a skeptic testing his "morphic resonance" idea, he responds that skeptics dampen the morphic field, whereas believers enhance it!  LOL!  (see sciam link)

On a related note, Sheldrake operates the "Skeptical Investigations" website, a thinly veiled (and poorly reasoned) attempt at misleading readers into thinking that paranormal investigation is skeptical and that any skeptical criticism of parapsychology by a mainstream scientists is by default invalid. Basically it a pro-paranormal propaganda site long on rhetoric and nearly devoid of critical thinking. See the 2nd link for more information on that.

In short, no I don't think the evidence adequately supports such an extraordinary conclusion.