Rupert Sheldrake objects to the term

Bruce Hood’s article, ‘Science and supernaturalism at the Festival of Science’ (SPA, December 2006), gave a misleading impression of the symposium entitled ‘Beyond the brain: making science personal’.
 
In his article, he told us, ‘I was concerned that the symposium would overshadow my presentation the day before on the origins of magical belief in adults.  It would directly contradict my conclusions by arguing that the supernatural was a real phenomenon and not a delusion.’  He revised his opinion because his own theory received considerable media attention and because some science journalists ‘questioned the wisdom of allowing such a platform at a science festival’.  But he wrongly portrayed the symposium, at which neither he nor the sceptical science journalists were present, as dealing with ‘supernaturalism’.
 
Evidence-based discussion

The symposium was actually concerned with the scientific investigation of little understood but widely reported phenomena.
 
The research by Dr Peter Fenwick described deathbed experiences as reported by people around the dying person.  This is surely a legitimate field for scientific enquiry. 
Professor Deborah Delanoy described a long series of laboratory experiments involving physiological measurements of people when others were concentrating on them in a different room. The data implied that there was a measurable response to other peoples’ thoughts and intentions at a distance. 

My own work on telephone telepathy investigated whether people really could tell at above-chance levels who was calling them.  Many people believe that they know who is on the phone in a way that seems telepathic, and my research explored this experimentally.

The BA symposium involved an evidence-based discussion, including comments from Professor Chris French, editor of The Skeptic.    

A balanced discussion of questions of widespread public interest was surely more in accordance with the advancement of science than an emotive display of dogma and prejudice.
 
Dr Rupert Sheldrake
holds the Perrott-Warrick Scholarship, administered by Trinity College, Cambridge