From Mr Adrian Roberts

Sir, — Any book review displays to some extent the subjective prefer­ences of the reviewer, but I take ex­cep­tion to the Revd Jeremy Crad­dock’s review of Rupert Sheldrake’s The Science Delusion (Books, 18 May), as I believe that his criticism is largely misjudged, and that he fails to do justice to the book’s strengths in at least two areas.

He complains that Sheldrake confuses materialism with natural­ism, on the basis of two articles in The Oxford Companion to Philo­sophy. The philosophical uses of these words are indeed many and varied, but it is perfectly acceptable for Sheldrake to use the word “materialism” in a common-language sense to refer to the source of the refusal to take seriously research conducted into telepathy and other apparent instances of action at a distance. This refusal stems from the prejudice that such things are presently unacceptable to scientific orthodoxy.

His point is not that all scientists suffer from this prejudice, but that its prevalence in the scientific estab­lish­ment has hindered the opening up of research into potentially fruitful areas.

Likewise, the assumption that only mechanistic medicine works is not universal among scientists, but has been influential enough to hinder the acceptance by the medical Estab­lishment of perfectly respect­able practices such as acupuncture and osteopathy.

This appeal for more openness, and for an end to the circular reason­ing that if something contra­dicts an orthodoxy then it must be dismissed out of hand, is important enough.

Equally important is Sheldrake’s discussion of the effect on scientific research of the sources of its fund­ing, about which he asks some timely and disturbing questions, pointing out that some of the greatest scien­tific discoveries were made by self-funded scientists who were free to follow the research where it led, without being answer­able to oppres­sive and occasionally sinister governments and corporations.

ADRIAN ROBERTS
Lay Chaplain
The Grammar School at Leeds
Alwoodley Gates, Harrogate Road
Leeds LS17 8GS