Sheldrake strikes me as a revival of the early modern scientist, someone who would have been at home in the early heyday of the Royal Society—an insatiably curious English gentleman who asks questions from fundamentals and wants to test everything for himself. Someone who sees no conflict between science and religion but is often attacked by dogmatists. Historically, this was an entirely mainstream position, though it hasn't been for a while now.

I find his curiosity charming, and his ability to consider questions from first principles remarkable. That he has been attacked so harshly ("A Book for Burning") yet always retains his good-humoured demeanour says a lot for him.