Editing Ray Lankester (section)

=== Rationalism ===
[[File:Sir Edwin Ray Lankester 1918.jpg|thumb|240px|Sir Edwin Ray Lankester in 1918]]

Lankester had close family connections with [[Suffolk]] (the [[Woodbridge, Suffolk|Woodbridge]] and [[Felixstowe]] area), and was an active member of the [[Rationalist]] group associated with the circle of [[Thomas Huxley]], [[Samuel Laing (science writer)|Samuel Laing]] and others. He was a friend of the Rationalist [[Edward Clodd]] of [[Aldeburgh]]. From 1901 to his death in 1929 he was Honorary President of the [[Ipswich Museum]]. He became convinced of the human workmanship of the (now unfavoured) 'Pre-palaeolithic' implements and rostro-carinates, and championed their cause at the Royal Society in 1910–1912. Through correspondence he became the scientific mentor of the Suffolk prehistorian James Reid Moir (1879–1944). He was a friend of [[Karl Marx]] in the latter's later years and was among the few persons present at his funeral.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=The friendship of Edwin Ray Lankester and Karl Marx: the last episode in Marx's intellectual evolution|first=Lewis S.|last=Feuer|author-link=Lewis Samuel Feuer|journal=Journal of the History of Ideas|volume=40|issue=4|year=1979|pages=633–648|doi=10.2307/2709363|jstor=2709363}}</ref>

Lankester was active in attempting to expose the frauds of [[Spiritualism (movement)|Spiritualist]] mediums during the 1920s. He was an important writer of popular science, his weekly newspaper columns over many years being assembled and reprinted in a series of books entitled ''Science from an Easy Chair'' (first series, 1910; second series, 1912).