Why unfortunately? Isn’t the ability to disagree and defend your ideas what science is all about? Why not find common ground in what you both believe in - testing our spiritual practices using evidence based science? I’ve met Sheldrake a few times, and interviewed him too, and always found him charming and funny. I’m not convinced by morphic fields, but don’t understand it. His research on telepathy seems interesting - there was a time when groundbreaking scientists like William James or Julian Huxley were interested in unexplained data without completely dismissing it. And his son Merlin Sheldrake wrote one of the best science books of 2021, on mushrooms. I do not think Sheldrake is a malign cultural presence, quite the opposite.