Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud - Hardcover

Park, Robert L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195135156 ISBN 13: 9780195135152

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2000

Synopsis

In a time of dazzling scientific progress, how are we to separate genuine breakthroughs from the noisy gaggle of false claims? Touching on everything from Deepak Chopra's "quantum alternative to growing old," and "free energy" machines, to unwarranted hype surrounding the International Space Station, Robert L. Park leads us through the dim back alleys of fringe science, down the gleaming corridors of Washington power and even into our evolutionary past to search out the origins of voodoo science. Along the way, Park offers some simple and engaging science lessons, showing us that you don't have to be a scientist to spot the foolish and fraudulent science that swirls around us.
While incorporating elements of high humor, from Joe Newman and his Energy Machine to the French "sniffer plane," this hard-hitting account also tallies the cost: the billions spent by the public on worthless therapies, the tax dollars squandered on huge government projects that are doomed to fail, the investors bilked by schemes that violate the most fundamental laws of nature. But the greater cost is human: fear of imaginary dangers, reliance on magical cures, and above all, a sort of upside-down view of how the world works.
To expose the forces that sustain voodoo science, Park closely examines the role of the media, the courts, bureaucrats and politicians, as well as the scientific community. Scientists, he observes, insist that the cure for voodoo science is to raise the general scientific literacy. But what is it that a scientifically literate society should know? It is not specific knowledge of science the public needs, Park argues, so much as a scientific world view--an understanding that we live in an orderly universe governed by natural laws that cannot be circumvented by magic or miracles.

About this title

Review

Scientific error, says Robert Park, "has a way of evolving ... from self-delusion to fraud. I use the term voodoo science to cover them all: pathological science, junk science, pseudoscience, and fraudulent science." In pathological science, scientists fool themselves. Junk science refers to scientists who use their expertise to befuddle and mislead others (usually juries or lawmakers). Pseudoscience has the trappings of science without any evidence. Fraudulent science is, well, fraud--old-fashioned lying.

Park is well-acquainted with voodoo science in all its forms. Since 1982, he has headed the Washington, D.C., office of the American Physical Society, and he has carried the flag for scientific rationality through cold fusion, homeopathy, "Star Wars," quantum healing, and sundry attempts to repeal the laws of thermodynamics. Park shows why a "disproportionate share of the science seen by the public is flawed" (because shaky science is more likely to skip past peer review and head straight for the media), and he gives a good tour of recent highlights in Voodoo. He has a rare ability to poke holes compassionately, without excoriating those taken in by their fondest wishes. Park is less forgiving of scientists (especially Edward Teller) when he thinks they've fallen down on the job, a job that should include helping the public separate the scientific wheat from the voodoo chaff. --Mary Ellen Curtin

About the Author

Robert L. Park is Professor of Physics and former chairman of the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland. He also directs the Washington Office of the American Physical Society. Author of more than a hundred scientific papers on the structure of crystal surfaces, he is a prolific writer of op-eds for the New York Times and other papers, and a regular contributor of science features for the Washington Post. A frequent commentator on TV news programs, Park posts a provocative weekly electronic column on science issues (http://www.opa.org/WN/) that is read avidly by scientists, journalists and government officials. He lives in Adelphi, Maryland.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0195135156
• ISBN 13: 9780195135152
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240