Editing Rupert Sheldrake (section)

===="A book for burning?"====
In September 1981, ''Nature'' published an editorial about ''A New Science of Life'' entitled "A book for burning?"<ref name=TimAdams/><ref name="Maddox 1981"/> Written by the journal's senior editor, [[John Maddox]], the editorial commented:

{{blockquote|Sheldrake's book is a splendid illustration of the widespread public misconception of what science is about. In reality, Sheldrake's argument is in no sense a scientific argument but is an exercise in pseudo-science ... Many readers will be left with the impression that Sheldrake has succeeded in finding a place for magic within scientific discussion—and this, indeed, may have been a part of the objective of writing such a book.<ref name="Maddox 1981"/>}}

Maddox argued that Sheldrake's hypothesis was not [[testable]] or "falsifiable in Popper's sense," referring to the philosopher [[Karl Popper]]. He said Sheldrake's proposals for testing his hypothesis were "time-consuming, inconclusive in the sense that it will always be possible to account for another morphogenetic field and impractical."<ref name="Maddox 1981" /> In the editorial, Maddox ultimately rejected the suggestion that the book should be burned.<ref name="Maddox 1981" /> Nonetheless, the title of the piece garnered widespread publicity.<ref name="maddox2" /><ref name="Rutherford" /><ref name="Rose 1988" /> In a subsequent issue, ''Nature'' published several letters expressing disapproval of the editorial,<ref name="josephson">{{cite journal |last=Josephson|first=B. D.|year=1981 |title=Incendiary subject |journal=Nature |volume=293 |page=594 |doi=10.1038/293594b0 |issue=5833|bibcode=1981Natur.293..594J|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Clarke|first=C. J. S. |year=1981 |title=Incendiary subject |journal=Nature |volume=293 |page=594 |doi=10.1038/293594a0 |issue=5833|bibcode=1981Natur.293..594C |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Hedges|first=R. |year=1981 |title=Incendiary subject |journal=Nature |volume=293 |page=506 |doi=10.1038/293506d0 |issue=5833|bibcode=1981Natur.293..506H |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Cousins|first=F. W. |year=1981 |title=Incendiary subject |journal=Nature |volume=293 |pages=506–594 |doi=10.1038/293506e0 |issue=5833 |bibcode=1981Natur.293..506C |doi-access=free }}</ref> including one from physicist [[Brian Josephson]], who criticised Maddox for "a failure to admit even the possibility that genuine physical facts may exist which lie outside the scope of current scientific descriptions."<ref name="josephson" /><!--Additional citations needed: Other letters called for Sheldrake's ideas to be tested scientifically to determine their validity.-->

In 1983, an editorial in ''The Guardian''<!-- possibly by Brian Inglis --> compared the "petulance of wrath of the scientific establishment" aimed against Sheldrake with the [[Galileo affair]] and [[Lysenkoism]].<ref name="Galileo">''Being more than sorry about Galileo'', ''[[The Guardian]]'', 14 May 1983, p. 10</ref> Responding in the same paper, [[Brian Charlesworth]] defended the scientific establishment, affirming that "the ultimate test of a scientific theory is its conformity with the observations and experiments" and that "vitalistic and Lamarckian ideas which [''The Guardian''] seem to regard so highly have repeatedly failed this test."<ref name="Charlesworth">[[Brian Charlesworth|Charlesworth, Brian]], ''The Holy See—but it takes a long time to admit it'', ''[[The Guardian]]'', 19 May 1983, p. 12.</ref>

In a letter to ''The Guardian'' in 1988, a scientist from [[Glasgow University]]<!-- that is David P. Leader, Glasgow University--> referred to the title "A book for burning?" as "posing the question to attract attention" and criticised the "perpetuation of the myth that Maddox ever advocated the burning of Sheldrake's book."<ref name="Leader"/> In 1999, Maddox characterised his 1981 editorial as "injudicious," saying that even though it concluded that Sheldrake's book

<blockquote>should not be burned ... but put firmly in its place among the literature of intellectual aberration. ... The publicists for Sheldrake's publishers were nevertheless delighted with the piece, using it to suggest that the Establishment (''Nature'') was again up to its old trick of suppressing uncomfortable truths.<ref name=maddox2/></blockquote> An editor for ''Nature'' said in 2009 that Maddox's reference to [[book burning]] backfired.<ref name=Rutherford/>

In 2012, Sheldrake described his time after Maddox's review as being "exactly like a papal excommunication. From that moment on, I became a very dangerous person to know for scientists."<ref name=TimAdams/>