The supernatural
Sir: Mary Kenny, discussing the recent exposure of two 'spiritualist surgeons' by several radio and television programmes, argues that a religious programme like Sunday should give uncritical coverage to the phenomenon of credulity about such claims rather than critical coverage to the problem of their authenticity (9 June). Isn't the first priority of any serious treatment of this subject to investigate whether a particular supernatural claim is true or false? Surely a religious programme should have as high standards as other programmes.
She then mentions in parenthesis 'a fascinating history of how the rationalists and scientists have cheated on the phenomenologists by falsifying the evidence'. Sceptics may have been too dogmatic in rejecting the evidence for supernatural phenomena, but is there any evidence that they have actually falsified it and, if so, who are 'the rationalists and scientists' responsible? If such a thing has happenea, it would scarcely rate a footnote in the .much longer and clearer history of the way evidence has been falsified in support of supernatural claims. There is no doubt about who has tried to cheat whom.
Nicolas Walter Rationalist Press Association, 88 Islington High Street, London Ni
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