... I apologize for my long answer (two in one). But here it is - on a more serious note :)

I think it's very probable that aliens exist but for my real life it does not matter. It's nice though to fantasize and make up stories. At the end of my own life this question will probably not be important to me. It is more important to me whether I have no regrets and lived my life in close relationships, not ending dying in a room where I see only unfamiliar people or worse: alone.

In academic science, topics have made it out of the taboo zone and into the establishment, just as vice versa. I don't exclude former assumptions whose starting point, for example, was never questioned again over the centuries and which may have started from a false or very questionable premise.

There need be no substitute for science, I don't see why that would be necessary, however, the scientific method should not present itself as superior to everything else, I rather plead for it to be enriched by what is defined as its opposite, synthesis. In my view, however, analysis is not the opposite, but complementary to it.

The problem with the scientific method is that it can only focus on certain factors in order to arrive at unambiguous results. This unambiguity is produced by means of laboratory settings within which there must be no deviation.

This is at the same time its strength, but in my eyes it does not diminish the fact that unambiguity is something that also carries the father of a thought as a desire and can thus become a bias.

This would basically not be such a big problem if

• 1st, it'd be generally acknowledged that there is an unknown bias factor underlying every scientific result. And it can ultimately be the belief or disbelief in something that makes one experience (and influence thereby) positive or negative results or no results at all.
• 2nd, the individual remains free in his or her decision to reject treatments/applications.

Any scientific work can be taken apart and questioned, that is basically the good tone that is cultivated among relaxed scientists, that theories and their results are contradicted and counter-theories and research are attempted.

I am aware that if research were always under scrutiny and subject to ongoing counter-theories and results, there would probably be no applications. This is, of course, a completely theoretical state of affairs that does not happen in practice because the opposite happens: There are ongoing applications that arise from scientific expertise and eventually end up in application, where they basically provide further insights.

Think of the enthusiasm of new medicine and application in its infancy and the horror that such practices cause today. For example, electroshock therapy on the mentally ill or lobotomies on the brain. Nowadays, such things would be considered gross charlatanry and bodily harm.

Therapies have been refined and made less invasive, but at all times experimental humans and animals and plants were needed outside the laboratory. I see a circular development and feedback in the whole matter. Has the medical industry grown so gigantically because there are so many sick people? But aren't the many sick people also an expression of a growing medicine industry?

The more people experience their livelihood and meaning in an industry, the more they reach a circle of their own relatives, friends and social contacts. The thing then grows from a certain point on as if all by itself, I would think. In my eyes, however, this does not mean that absolutely clean scientific work has preceded it. The will to self-preservation is strong in all grown structures and therefore difficult to resist or question.

This is where I meet or return your question: how do you know that Sheldrake and others do not conduct proper experiments?

Vanity should never be underestimated and a person who has built something up on the basis of a certain world view will defend tooth and nail what he thinks is right. Sheldrake does not make this impression on me; rather, he seems not being a zealot and basically calls on his readers and listeners again and again to set up experiments themselves and carry them out at schools or universities. Only the brave and the deviant follow this call, because it is risky.

It seems important to me to accept such dissenters and to take up an idea as worthy of research precisely because it contradicts the common picture of the world. I interpret that you have also a positive attitude towards those deviators.

On the other hand, it may all be nonsense and I turn away from it disinterested because my real life requires me to go against all scientific "reason or warning", just as I would against a perceived enthusiasm, and do what my conscience tells me. I am talking about my freedom to behave unreasonably and irrationally, because ultimately my rationality cannot be generally questioned or adequately proven or unproven. To do so would require me to be pressed into a context on which I have a say.

To answer your other question

How do you think his ideas would fit with this topic of extra terrestrial life?

Not sure. He speaks about "the sun being conscious", for example. I think he would not rule out extra terrestrial life, if that was the question?

I see no chance to prepare myself for meeting aliens. No preparation whatsoever will avoid me the surprise and shock related to an encounter of utmost strangeness. If I would be amongst the first ones, I may go insane. If, on the other hand, those aliens would appear like humans, I see no need for being prepared but go with the flow.

It goes with habit. The first generations being under shock and disbelief, while the further ones become familiarized and used to the foreign. Though, no unity to be expected.

I hope you don't mind me being a bit of a spoilsport and have left the lightness of the conversation.
Be assured of my sincerity towards you! :))