Nonscience Returns

The original Nonscience dates from 1971, and caused a sensation. It was translated, featured on television, and enthusiastically reviewed. To cele¬brate its fiftieth birthday it is being republished, with updates for each chapter to show how its predictions came true―and the COVID-19 pandemic makes it particularly timely.

This extraordinary book reveals a world dominated by Experts. For these all-powerful people, public image and media exposure are all that matters. Scientists, devoted to discovering the truth, have been superseded by Experts who use confusing language to dominate us and lay claim to colossal grants in their quest for power. Integrity and objectivity are gone; opportunism and duplicity reign.

Experts study weird things, like a bird called Bugeranus, a fungus Spongiforma squarepantsii, a beetle called Agra cadabra, and Pieza rhea, a fly. They are all real! There are articles like 'Fifty Ways to Love Your Lever' and 'Fantastic Yeasts and where to find Them', and papers with multiple authors (in 2015 Nature published one with 5,154 authors). Encyclopaedias copy facts from each other, and are dotted with mistakes, so you will find biographies of Dag Henrik Esrum-Hellerup and Lillian Virginia Mountweazel―in¬vented to fill the pages. Neither was real.

Experts prey on the public who are ignorant of what's going on and they ensure that we are surrounded by fake news. The Amazon is not the 'lungs of the world' (it contributes no oxygen whatever to our atmosphere) and our hysteria about plastic is similarly misplaced.
British people say they don't want American chicken, and wouldn't eat chlorine-washed food. Yet they do, every day. People follow those bake-off programmes, though the fatty food they promote kills people. Ford believes these shows should have a health warning and is surprised we don't have the 'Great Tobacco Smoking Challenge' or the 'Blindfold Railway-Crossing Elimination Game'.

This book should be read by everybody wishing to understand the modern world. Huge enterprises (like the Human Genome Project and the Large Hadron Collider) have conned us out of billions of pounds, while smaller teams had better results at a fraction of the cost. It is time to call a halt to this global confidence trick―and Nonscience Returns is the book that will guide us.

Brian J. Ford is a leading multidisciplinary scientist who has found explanations for intelligent microbes, the evolution of dinosaurs, spontaneous human combustion, the way blood coagulates, how to breed locusts, the way microscopes developed …. He has contributed to encyclopaedias; been science editor for Guinness World Records; launched the BBC's weekly programme Science Now; hosted programmes like Food for Thought and Where are you Taking Us?; had his own game-show Computer Challenge; has lectured internationally; and has appeared on programmes including Today and Any Questions?