Rupert Sheldrake New Scientist controversey

Posted on 2011/06/15 , tagged as

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Our new edition of Rupert Sheldrake’s The Presence of the Past isn’t published until early next month and yet it is already raising hackles, as you can see from this post on the New Scientist’s CultureLab site.

We included on the front cover of the book a quote from the New Scientist about the original edition – ‘Engaging, provocative … a tour de force’ – which was taken from a review of the book in the magazine from July 1988.

Seeing our new edition, current staff at the magazine couldn’t quite believe that their magazine had given Sheldrake’s book such praise – although this PDF of the original review proved that we weren’t making it up. Not only was the quote most definitely in that review, it pretty well reflects the tone of the whole piece.

‘Back then, Roszak [the reviewer] gave Sheldrake the benefit of the doubt. Today, attitudes have hardened and Sheldrake is seen as standing firmly on the wilder shores of science’ they say now. ‘I think it is fair to say that if we were to review the new edition, Icon wouldn’t be mining it for promotional purposes.’

We’re very pleased to see that Rupert Sheldrake’s work is losing none of its power to excite scientific passions! You can read the book yourself from 7th July.