It could go one way or it could go another. Anything which influenced or imposed pattern upon chance could bring about a causative influence in nature not violating any law of physics. Indeed, he tells how a random noise generator ceased producing random noise during the five minutes the O.J. Simpson trial verdict was broadcast. If Sheldrake sounds like a crackpot, he is. But delightfully so.
Mad scientists are a thing of the past.
Then he points out that it was Francis Bacon who believed scientists should be the new priesthood. It figures that California became a haven for Sheldrake in the early 1990s. Privately, Sheldrake enjoyed partaking in a chemical trip or two himself, so he was sympathetic to McKenna's ravings. In the mid-1990s, Sheldrake began to distance himself from the California scene and just studied the pooches. He's collected irrefutable evidence that Lassie almost always knows when her master is returning home.