About Rupert Sheldrake
 
 

Controversies


The Genome Wager

The wager arose from Rupert's debate with Lewis Wolpert, The Nature of Life - a Scientific Debate at the Cambridge Science Festival, March 20th 2009.
The papers presented by both participants and details of the wager... What can DNA tell us?


The New Scientist Controversy

The Presence of the Past Denounced Then Strongly Supported
Read the Comments


Richard Dawkins

The crusading atheist visited Rupert in 2007 to interview him for his TV series Enemies of Reason:
Rupert's article... Richard Dawkins Comes to Call.


Skepticism
by Rupert Sheldrake

Healthy skepticism plays an important part in science, and stimulates research and critical thinking. Healthy skeptics are open-minded and interested in evidence. By contrast, dogmatic skeptics are committed to the belief that "paranormal" phenomena are impossible
Skepticism


The Perrott-Warrick Public Debate - Does Telepathy Happen?

Rupert debates with Prof Chris French, Prof Simon Blackburn in the chair
Live Audio Recording (1hr 52min). from Trinity Hall Cambridge, 29th November 2006


Rupert at the BA Festival of Science UEA Norwich Sept 2-9th 2006

Rupert's paper on Telephone Telepathy was widely reported in the media and gave rise to a major controversy. Full details, including press comments, audio interviews and discussions, and articles...
BA Science Festival 2006


Sheldrake and his Critics:   The sense of being glared at.
A special edition of the Journal of Consciousness Studies (JCS Vol 12 No. 6, 2005)

In this special edition of JCS Rupert summarises his case for the 'non-visual detection of staring'. His claims are scrutinised by fourteen critics, to whom Rupert then responds.
The Sense of being Stared At Special JCS eidtion


The Telepathy Debate

Professor Lewis Wolpert, FRS took part with Rupert in a debate on telepathy at the Royal Society of Arts in January 2004, which was reported in Nature and can be heard online here.


Michael Shermer

Is the publisher of Skeptic magazine, the Director of the Skeptic Society, the host of the Skeptics' Lecture Series at the California Institute of Technology, and the author of a regular column in Scientific American called "Skeptic".
Shermer's attacks on Rupert's work


James Randi

Conjurer and the former Principal Investigator of CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. He was named "Skeptic of the Century" in the January 2000 issue of The Skeptical Inquirer. For more on Randi's attempts to debunk Rupert's conclusions... Randi's debunking
Rupert comments on the disappointing interview with James Randi by Chris French Skeptic letters


Dr Richard Wiseman

Conjurer and professional Skeptic based at the University of Hertfordshire in England, a Consultant Editor of The Skeptical Inquirer , and a Research Fellow of CSICOP. He attempted to debunk Rupert's work on dogs.

Wiseman's attempted debunking

However, he admitted in his recent Skeptiko interview, that his data does correspond with Sheldrake's.

In a recent debate with Rupert, there was wide disagreement over parapsychology experiments (8th March 2010).
Sheldrake and Wiseman on Skeptiko
JSPR has published a penetrating critique by Chris Carter of Richard Wiseman's latest attack on parapsychology - his 'Heads I win, tails you lose' paper published in Skeptical Inquirer.
Chris Carter's reply... A Response to Wiseman’s (2010) Critique of Parapsychology
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Dr David Marks

CSICOP Fellow and professor at City University, London.

He is the author of The Psychology of the Psychic (2000), in which he rejects a wide range of "paranormal" phenomena, including Rupert's research on the sense of being stared at. He attacked this research in 2000 in the Skeptical Inquirer in an article co-authored with John Colwell.  

 He attacked this research again in 2003 in The Skeptic, and also tried to explain away Rupert's work on return-anticipating dogs.


The late Sir John Maddox, Emeritus Editor of the scientific journal Nature.

Rupert's oldest critic, he was the author of the infamous "candidate for burning" editorial in Nature in 1981 about Rupert's first book, A New Science of Life
For more on the controversy between Rupert and Sir John Maddox

The Maddox controversy
Maddox repeated his 'heresy' charge on You Tube 'A Book for Burning' video clip


Dr Robert A. Baker

Retired psychology professor at the University of Kentucky, and a CSICOP Fellow.

In the Skeptical Inquirer he dismissed the sense of being stared at as false.

Baker's demonstrations


Robert Todd Carroll

Robert Todd Carroll produces "The Skeptic's Dictionary" on the internet. According to his Wikipedia entry, he is a "longtime advocate of atheism and scientific skepticism". His Ph.D. is on a seventeeth century bishop, and he teaches philosophy at Sacramento City College. He made some misleading comments on morphic resonance and on research I conducted with Aimee Morgana on her parrot N'kisi, to which I reply here.
Rupert's replies to Carroll:
On the N'kisi research
On the theory of Morphic Resonance


P.Z. Myers: Rupert in psi controversy

"Expelling Sheldrake"
Daily Grail interview


The European Skeptics Congress 2005

Rupert was invited to speak at the 12th European Skeptics Congress in Brussels in October 2005 where there was a debate on telepathy with Dr. Jan Willem Nienhuys of the Dutch skeptic organisation.
The European Skeptics Congress 2005 Debate


Rupert's complaint against National Geographic

Rupert refered the National Geographic TV Channel to Ofcom over their programme "Is It Real? Psychic Animals" first broadcast in August 2005
Ofcom Adjudication in Rupert's favour


Controversy in British Columbia

Website skeptic Shannon Rupp objecting to Rupert's lecture at the University of British Columbia on 20th July 2006 inquired "Why is UBC promoting New Age pseudoscience?"
Rupp's article - full text Pitching Woo-Woo
Rupert's reply to Shannon Rupp

 

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