Bad posture : LETTERS

A SMALL news item tells us (Briefly, 29 January) that Yale University has shredded the "posture" photographs of former students made by WH Sheldon, on the grounds that they "advanced a since-discredited science". Sheldon thought it would be possible to measure human physique on certain basic dimensions, and relate these to personality characteristics. It was a scientific hypothesis which was in the end not supported. Are we to destroy the evidence for every theory that is no longer accepted? Do we shred Euclid's work because we have non-Euclidean geometry, or that of Newton because we have Einstein?

This is mere political correctness, or to use an older and more expressive term, barbarism.

Prof John Radford Psychology Dept University of East London London E15