A furious row broke out today at Britain's premier science forum over the decision to allow believers in the paranormal to promote their views without challenge from the mainstream.

The row was triggered by the British Association for the Advancement of Science's decision to showcase highly controversial research purporting to demonstrate telepathy and life after death.

Critics including Lord Winston and Sir Walter Bodmer, both past presidents of the BA, expressed particular alarm that three speakers who think paranormal phenomena are real were allowed to hold a press conference without challenge from sceptics. Some said telepathy has already been found wanting in experiments, and has no place at a scientific meeting.

Other scientists said that while discussion of the subject was acceptable, the panel’s lack of balance was like inviting creationists to address the prestigious meeting without an opposing view from evolutionary biologists. Several members of the BA said that they would raise the matter with its ruling council.

Sir Walter, a geneticist and cancer researcher, said: "I’m amazed that the BA has allowed it to happen in this way. You have got to be careful not to suppress ideas, even if they are beyond the pale, but it’s quite inappropriate to have a session like that without putting forward a more convincing view."

The session on the paranormal featured three pieces of research, each of which claims to find evidence for phenomena that most scientists consider impossible under the laws of physics.

The first study, into telepathy, was conducted by Rupert Sheldrake, an unorthodox biologist whose work tends to inspire strong reactions among both supporters and critics.

Many people report experiences in which they were thinking of a friend or relative who happened to phone them at that moment. Most scientists regard this as coincidence, reinforced by forgetting the many times we think of friends who never ring, but Dr Sheldrake has tried to test whether it is actually down to genine telepathy.

He asked 63 volunteers to select four friends, one of whom would then be selected at random to ring them at a pre-arranged time. On picking up the phone, the subject would say who he thought was calling.

By chance alone, people should get the right friend 25 per cent of the time, but Dr Sheldrake found that they actually did much better than this, with a success rate of 40 per cent in 571 tries. Callers were often several miles away, sometimes thousands of miles away, and distance did not affect the outcome.

In a follow-up trial, the participants were videotaped to ensure they were not getting messages from their callers. The four subjects tested in this way did even better, picking the right caller 45 per cent of the time.

Dr Sheldrake claims the results as good evidence for genuine telepathy, at least between some people who know each other well. "The odds of this being a chance effect are 1,000 billion to one," he said.

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