Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, also known just as In the Name of Science, was Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...

's second book, and has become a classic in the literature of entertaining scientific skepticism

Scientific skepticism

Scientific skepticism is the practice of questioning the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence or reproducibility, as part of a methodological norm pursuing "the extension of certified knowledge". For example, Robert K...

. Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer

Michael Brant Shermer is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members...

said of it: "Modern skepticism has developed into a science-based movement, beginning with Martin Gardner's 1952 classic".

The book debunks

Debunker

A debunker is an individual who attempts to discredit and contradict claims as being false, exaggerated or pretentious. The term is closely associated with skeptical investigation of, or in some cases irrational resistance to, controversial topics such as U.F.O.s, claimed paranormal phenomena,...

what it characterises as pseudo-science

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...

and the pseudo-scientists who propagate it.

Summary

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science starts with a brief survey of the spread of the ideas of "cranks" and "pseudo-scientists", attacking the credulity of the popular press and the irresponsibility of publishing houses in helping to propagate these ideas. Cranks often cite historical cases where ideas were rejected which are now accepted as right. Gardner acknowledges that such cases occurred, and describes some of them, but says that times have changed: "If anything, scientific journals err on the side of permitting questionable theses to be published". Gardner acknowledges that "among older scientists ... one may occasionally meet with irrational prejudice against a new point of view", but adds that "a certain degree of dogma ... is both necessary and desirable" because otherwise "science would be reduced to shambles by having to examine every new-fangled notion that came along."

Gardner says that cranks have two common characteristics. The first "and most important" is that they work in almost total isolation from the scientific community. Gardner defines the community as an efficient network of communication within scientific fields, together with a co-operative process of testing new theories. This process allows for apparently bizarre theories to be published - such as Einstein's theory of relativity, which initially met with considerable opposition, but which was never dismissed as the work of a crackpot, and which soon met with almost universal acceptance. But the crank 'stands entirely outside the closely integrated channels through which new ideas are introduced and evaluated. He does not send his findings to the recognized journals or, if he does, they are rejected for reasons which in the vast majority of cases are excellent'.

The second characteristic of the crank (which also contributes to his or her isolation) is the tendency to paranoia. There are five ways in which this tendency is likely to be manifested.

The pseudo-scientist considers himself a genius.
He regards other researchers as stupid, dishonest or both.
He believes there is a campaign against his ideas, a campaign comparable to the persecution of Galileo or Pasteur
Pasteur
Pasteur could refer to* Louis Pasteur , French chemist and microbiologist who invented:**Pasteurization**The pasteur pipette, both named after him-Things and places named after Louis Pasteur:* Pasteur Institute* Pasteur point, level of oxygen...

. He may attribute his 'persecution' to a conspiracy by a scientific 'masonry' who are unwilling to admit anyone to their inner sanctum without appropriate initiation.
Instead of side-stepping the mainstream, the pseudo-scientist attacks it head-on: The most revered scientist is Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

so Gardner writes that Einstein is the most likely establishment figure to be attacked.
He has a tendency to use complex jargon, often making up words and phrases. Gardner compares this to the way that schizophrenics talk in what psychiatrists call 'neologisms', "words which have meaning to the patient, but sound like Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

to everyone else."

These psychological traits are in varying degrees demonstrated throughout the remaining chapters of the book, in which Gardner examines particular "fads" he labels pseudo-scientific. His writing became the source book from which many later studies of pseudo-science were taken (e.g. Encyclopedia of Pseudo-science).

Critical reception

A contemporary review in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known simply as the "PG," is the largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.-Early history:...

particularly welcomed Gardner's critical remarks about Hoxsey Therapy

Hoxsey Therapy

The Hoxsey Therapy or Hoxsey Method is an alternative medical treatment promoted as a cure for cancer. The treatment consists of a caustic herbal paste for external cancers or an herbal mixture for "internal" cancers, combined with laxatives, douches, vitamin supplements, and dietary changes....

and about Krebiozen

Krebiozen

Krebiozen is an alternative cancer treatment. While the substance has been marketed as a cure for cancer, Krebiozen is not known to possess any therapeutic value...

, both of which were being advanced as anti-cancer measures at that time. The review concluded that the book "should help to counteract some amusing and some positively harmful cults, the existence of which is all too often promoted by irresponsible journalism."

The work has often been mentioned in subsequent books and articles.
Louis Lasagna

Louis Lasagna

Louis Lasagna was an American physician and professor of medicine, known for his revision of the Hippocratic Oath.-Early life and education:...

, in his book The Doctors' Dilemmas, considered it to be a "superb account of scientific cults, fads, and frauds" and wrote that "This talented writer combines solid fact with a pleasing style."

Sociologist of religion Anson D. Shupe took in general a positive attitude, and praises Gardner for his humor. But he says

If there is a single criticism to be made of Gardner ... it is that he accepts too comfortably the conventional wisdom, or accepted social reality, of current twentieth-century science and middle-class American Christianity. Somehow it is evident (to me at least) that he is implicitly making a pact with the reader to evaluate these fringe groups in terms of their own shared presumptions about what is "normal". Thus he is quite confident throwing around labels like "quack", "crank" and "preposterous". In science the use of such value judgments can be quite time-bound; likewise in religions where today's heresy may become tomorrow's orthodoxy. The odds of course are always on the side of the writer criticizing fringe groups because statistically speaking so few of them survive. However, whan a group does weather its infancy and go on to prosper, invariably its original detractors look a bit more arbitrary than they did initially, and then the shoe is on the other foot.

In the 1980s a fierce interchange took place between Gardner and Colin Wilson

Colin Wilson

Colin Henry Wilson is a prolific English writer who first came to prominence as a philosopher and novelist. Wilson has since written widely on true crime, mysticism and other topics. He prefers calling his philosophy new existentialism or phenomenological existentialism.- Early biography:Born and...

. In The Quest for Wilhelm Reich Wilson wrote of this book

(Gardner) writes about various kinds of cranks with the conscious superiority of the scientist, and in most cases one can share his sense of the victory of reason. But after half a dozen chapters this non-stop superiority begins to irritate; you begin to wonder about the standards that make him so certain he is always right. He asserts that the scientist, unlike the crank, does his best to remain open-minded. So how can he be so sure that no sane person has ever seen a flying saucer, or used a dowsing rod to locate water? And that all the people he disagrees with are unbalanced fanatics? A colleague of the positivist philospher A. J. Ayer once remarked wryly "I wish I was as certain of anything as he seems to be about everything". Martin Gardner produces the same feeling.

By Wilson's own account, up to that time he and Gardner had been friends, but Gardner took offence. In February 1989 Gardner wrote a letter published in The New York Review of Books

The New York Review of Books

The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

describing Wilson as "England’s leading journalist of the occult, and a firm believer in ghosts, poltergeists, levitations, dowsing, PK (psychokinesis), ESP, and every other aspect of the psychic scene". Shortly afterwards, Wilson replied, defending himself and adding "What strikes me as so interesting is that when Mr. Gardner—and his colleagues of CSICOP—begin to denounce the 'Yahoos of the paranormal,' they manage to generate an atmosphere of such intense hysteria ...". Gardner in turn replied quoting his own earlier description of Wilson: "The former boy wonder, tall and handsome in his turtleneck sweater, has now decayed into one of those amiable eccentrics for which the land of Conan Doyle is noted. They prowl comically about the lunatic fringes of science ..."

In a review of a subsequent Gardner work, Paul Stuewe of the Toronto Star

Toronto Star

The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...

called Fads and Fallacies a "hugely enjoyable demolition of pseudo-scientific nonsense". Ed Regis

Ed Regis (author)

Ed Regis is an American author and educator. He specializes in books and articles about science, philosophy and intelligence. His topics have included nanotechnology, transhumanism and biological warfare...

, writing in the New York Times, considered the book to be "the classic put-down of pseudoscience". Fellow skeptic Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer

called the book "the skeptic classic of the past half-century." He noted that the mark of popularity for the book came when John W. Campbell

John W. Campbell

John Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction , from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in...

denounced the chapter on dianetics over the radio.

Mark Erickson, author of Science, culture and society: understanding science in the twenty-first century, noted that Gardner's book provided "a flavour of the immense optimism surrounding science in the 1950s" and that his choice of topics were "interesting", but also that his attacks on "osteopathy, chiropractice, and the Bates method for correcting eyesight would raise eyebrows amongst medical practitioners today".

Gardner’s own response to criticism is given in his preface:

The first edition of this book prompted many curious letters from irate readers. The most violent letters came from Reichians, furious because the book considered orgonomy alongside such (to them) outlandish cults as dianetics. Dianeticians, of course, felt the same about orgonomy. I heard from homeopaths who were insulted to find themselves in company with such frauds as osteopathy and chiropractic, and one chiropractor in Kentucky “pitied” me because I had turned my spine on God’s greatest gift to suffering humanity. Several admirers of Dr. Bates favored me with letters so badly typed that I suspect the writers were in urgent need of strong spectacles. Oddly enough, most of these correspondents objected to one chapter only, thinking all the others excellent.

History

The 1957 Dover

Dover Publications

Dover Publications is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward Cirker and his wife, Blanche. It publishes primarily reissues, books no longer published by their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books in the public domain. The original published editions may be...

publication is a revised and expanded version of In the Name of Science, which was published by G. P. Putnam's Sons

G. P. Putnam's Sons

G. P. Putnam's Sons was a major United States book publisher based in New York City, New York. Since 1996, it has been an imprint of the Penguin Group.-History:...

in 1952. The subtitle boldly states the book's theme: "The curious theories of modern pseudoscientist and the strange, amusing and alarming cults that surround them. A study in human gullibility". As of 2005, it had been reprinted at least 30 times.

The book was expanded from an article first published in the Antioch Review
Antioch Review
The Antioch Review is an American literary magazine established in 1941 at Antioch College in Ohio. One of the oldest continuously published literary magazines in the United States, it publishes fiction, essays and poetry from both emerging and established authors.The magazine continues to publish...

in 1950, and in the preface to the first edition, Gardner thanks the Review for allowing him to develop the article as the starting point of his book.
Not all material in the article is carried over to the book. For example, in the article, Gardner writes:

The reader may wonder why a competent scientist does not publish a detailed refutation of Reich's absurd biological speculations. The answer is that the informed scientist doesn't care, and would, in fact, damage his reputation by taking the time to undertake such a thankless task.

And comments in a footnote:

It is not within the scope of this paper, however, to discuss technical criteria by which hypotheses are given high, low, or negative degrees of confirmation. Our purpose is simply to glance at several examples of a type of scientific activity which fails completely to conform to scientific standards, but at the same time is the result of such intricate mental activity that it wins temporary acceptance by many laymen insufficiently informed to recognize the scientist's incompetence. Although there obviously is no sharp line separating competent from incompetent research, and there are occasions when a scientific "orthodoxy" may delay the acceptance of novel views, the fact remains that the distance between the work of competent scientists and the speculations of a Voliva or Velikovsky is so great that a qualitative difference emerges which justifies the label of "pseudo-science." Since the time of Galileo the history of pseudo-science has been so completely outside the history of science that the two streams touch only in the rarest of instances.

While in the book, Gardner writes:

If someone announces that the moon is made of green cheese, the professional astronomer cannot be expected to climb down from his telescope and write a detailed refutation. “A fairly complete textbook of physics would be only part of the answer to Velikovsky,” writes Prof. Laurence J. Lafleur, in his excellent article on “Cranks and Scientists” (Scientific Monthly, Nov., 1951), “and it is therefore not surprising that the scientist does not find the undertaking worth while.” .

And in the wrap-up of the chapter:

Just as an experienced doctor is able to diagnose certain ailments the instant a new patient walks into his office, or a police officer learns to recognize criminal types from subtle behavior clues which escape the untrained eye, so we, perhaps, may learn to recognize the future scientific crank when we first encounter him. .

Chapters

As per the subtitle of the book, "The curious theories of modern pseudoscientist and the strange, amusing and alarming cults that surround them" are discussed in the chapters as listed.

1 - In the Name of Science

the introductory chapter

2 - Flat and Hollow

the Flat Earth
Flat Earth
The Flat Earth model is a belief that the Earth's shape is a plane or disk. Most ancient cultures have had conceptions of a flat Earth, including Greece until the classical period, the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period, India until the Gupta period ...

theory of Wilbur Glenn Voliva
Wilbur Glenn Voliva
Wilbur Glenn Voliva was an evangelist and a prominent proponent of Flat Earth theories.-Early life and education:...
the Hollow Earth
Hollow Earth
The Hollow Earth hypothesis proposes that the planet Earth is either entirely hollow or otherwise contains a substantial interior space. The hypothesis has been shown to be wrong by observational evidence, as well as by the modern understanding of planet formation; the scientific community has...

theories of John Cleves Symmes, Jr.
John Cleves Symmes, Jr.
John Cleves Symmes, Jr. was an American army officer whose 1818 Hollow Earth theory, expounded on the lecture circuit, gained him considerable notoriety.-Biography:...

and Cyrus Reed Teed

3 - Monsters of Doom

Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian-born American independent scholar of Jewish origins, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller Worlds in Collision, published in 1950...

’s Worlds in Collision
Worlds in Collision
Worlds in Collision is a book written by Immanuel Velikovsky and first published on April 3, 1950. The book proposed that around the 15th century BCE, Venus was ejected from Jupiter as a comet or comet-like object, and passed near Earth...
William Whiston
William Whiston
William Whiston was an English theologian, historian, and mathematician. He is probably best known for his translation of the Antiquities of the Jews and other works by Josephus, his A New Theory of the Earth, and his Arianism...

’s A New Theory of the Earth
A New Theory of the Earth
A New Theory of the Earth was a book written by William Whiston, in which he presented a description of the divine creation of the Earth and a posited global flood. He also postulated that the earth originated from the atmosphere of a comet and that all major changes in earth's history could be...
Ignatius Donnelly
Ignatius Donnelly
Ignatius Loyola Donnelly was a U.S. Congressman, populist writer and amateur scientist, known primarily now for his theories concerning Atlantis, Catastrophism , and Shakespearean authorship, all of which modern historians consider to be pseudoscience and pseudohistory...

’s Ragnarok; Hans Hörbiger
Hans Hörbiger
Hanns Hörbiger was an Austrian engineer from Vienna with roots in Tyrol. He took part in the construction of the Budapest subway and in 1894 invented a new type of valve essential for compressors still in widespread use today.He is also remembered today for his pseudoscientific Welteislehre ...

’s Welteislehre
Welteislehre
Welteislehre , also known as Glazial-Kosmogonie is a pseudoscientific cosmological theory proposed by Hans Hörbiger, an Austrian engineer and inventor and respected steam engine designer, whose invention of the Hörbiger valve made him a wealthy man.Hörbiger did not arrive at his theory through...

and Hörbiger’s disciple Hans Schindler Bellamy
Hans Schindler Bellamy
Hans Schindler Bellamy was a researcher and author. His books investigate the work of Austrian cosmologist, Hans Hoerbiger and German selenographer, Philipp Fauth, whose now-defunct Cosmic Ice Theory :Bellamy's first book, Moons, Myths and Man, describes Hoerbiger's theory in detail, and its...

.

4 - The Forteans

Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...

, Tiffany Thayer
Tiffany Thayer
Tiffany Ellsworth Thayer was an American actor, author and founder of the Fortean Society.-Biography:Born in Freeport, Illinois, Thayer quit school at age 15 and worked as an actor, reporter, and used-book clerk in Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland. Aged 16, he toured as the teenaged hero in the...

and the Fortean Society
Fortean Society
The Fortean Society was started in the United States in 1931 during a meeting held in the New York flat of Charles Hoy Fort in order to promote the ideas of American writer Charles Fort. The Fortean Society was primarily based in New York City. Its first president was Theodore Dreiser, an old...
The Hutchins-Adler Great Books
Great Books
Great Books refers primarily to a group of books that tradition, and various institutions and authorities, have regarded as constituting or best expressing the foundations of Western culture ; derivatively the term also refers to a curriculum or method of education based around a list of such books...

Movement: "most of them regard scientists, on the whole, as a stupid lot."

5 - Flying Saucers

Kenneth Arnold
Kenneth Arnold
Kenneth A. Arnold was an American aviator and businessman. He is best-known for making what is generally considered the first widely reported unidentified flying object sighting in the United States, after claiming to have seen nine unusual objects flying in a chain near Mount Rainier, Washington...

, the Mantell UFO Incident
Raymond Palmer, Richard Shaver, Donald Keyhoe
Donald Keyhoe
Donald Edward Keyhoe was an American Marine Corps naval aviator, writer of many aviation articles and stories in a variety of leading publications, and manager of the promotional tours of aviation pioneers, especially of Charles Lindbergh.In the 1950s he became well-known as an UFO researcher,...

, Frank Scully
Frank Scully
Frank Scully was an author in the 1940s and 1950s and wrote for the show business publication Variety.In October and November 1949, Scully published two columns in Variety, claiming that extraterrestrial beings were recovered from a flying saucer crash, based on what he said was reported to him by...

, Gerald Heard
Gerald Heard
Henry Fitzgerald Heard commonly called Gerald Heard was an historian, science writer, educator, and philosopher. He wrote many articles and over 35 books....

and the Unidentified flying object
Unidentified flying object
A term originally coined by the military, an unidentified flying object is an unusual apparent anomaly in the sky that is not readily identifiable to the observer as any known object...

movement

6 - Zig-Zag-and-Swirl

Alfred Lawson
Alfred Lawson
Alfred William Lawson was a professional baseball player, manager and league promoter from 1887 through 1916 and went on to play a pioneering role in the US aircraft industry, publishing two early aviation trade journals...

and his “Lawsonomy”

7 - Down with Einstein!

Joseph Battell
Joseph Battell
Joseph Battell was a publisher and philanthropist from Middlebury, Vermont. Battell is credited with preserving Vermont forest land including the land for Camel's Hump State Park. Battell edited a newspaper and authored several books, including the "American Morgan Horse Registry"...

, Thomas H. Graydon, George Francis Gillette, Jeremiah J. Callahan
Jeremiah J. Callahan
Jeremiah Joseph Callahan, C.S.Sp. was a Roman Catholic priest and the fifth president of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, from 1931 until 1940.-Personal background:...

and others.

8 - Sir Isaac Babson

Roger Babson
Roger Babson
Roger Ward Babson , remembered today largely for founding Babson College in Massachusetts, was an entrepreneur and business theorist in the first half of the 20th century...

and the Gravity Research Foundation
Gravity Research Foundation
The Gravity Research Foundation, established in 1948 by businessman Roger Babson , was an organization designed to find ways to implement gravitational shielding...

9 - Dowsing Rods and Doodlebugs

Solcol W. Tromp and radiesthesia
Radiesthesia
Radiesthesia is the claimed paranormal or parapsychological ability to detect "radiation" within the human body. According to the theory, all human bodies give off unique or characteristic "radiations" as do all other physical bodies or objects. Such radiations are often termed an "aura".A...
Kenneth Roberts, Henry Gross and their dowsing
Dowsing
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites, and many other objects and materials, as well as so-called currents of earth radiation , without the use of scientific apparatus...

10 - Under the Microscope

Andrew Crosse
Andrew Crosse
Andrew Crosse was a British amateur scientist who was born and died at Fyne Court, Broomfield, Somerset. Crosse was an early pioneer and experimenter in the use of electricity and one of the last of the 'gentlemen scientists'...

, Henry Charlton Bastian
Henry Charlton Bastian
Henry Charlton Bastian was an English physiologist and neurologist. Fellow of Royal Society in 1868.Bastian graduated in 1861 at the University of London....

, Charles Wentworth Littlefield and others who observed spontaneous generation of living forms

11 - Geology versus Genesis

Philip Henry Gosse
Philip Henry Gosse
Philip Henry Gosse was an English naturalist and popularizer of natural science, virtually the inventor of the seawater aquarium, and a painstaking innovator in the study of marine biology...

and his Omphalos
Omphalos (book)
Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot is a book by Philip Gosse, written in 1857 , in which he argues that the fossil record is not evidence of evolution, but rather that it is an act of creation inevitably made so that the world would appear to be older than it is...
George McCready Price
George McCready Price
George McCready Price was a Canadian creationist. He produced several anti-evolution and creationist works, particularly on the subject of flood geology...

and The New Geology
Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Adler
Mortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California...

’s writings on evolution
Hilaire Belloc
Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...

’s debate
Mr. Belloc Objects to "The Outline of History"
Mr. Belloc Objects to “The Outline of History” is a 1926 short book written by the British novelist H. G. Wells as a rebuttal of the criticism of historian Hilaire Belloc. In 1926, Belloc published his A Companion to Mr. Wells’s "Outline of History" as a critique of Wells’ earlier historical...

with H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...

12 - Lysenkoism

Lamarck and Lamarckism
Lamarckism
Lamarckism is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring . It is named after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary theories...

; Lysenko
Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a Soviet agronomist of Ukrainian origin, who was director of Soviet biology under Joseph Stalin. Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of the hybridization theories of Russian horticulturist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, and adopted them into a powerful...

and Lysenkoism
Lysenkoism
Lysenkoism, or Lysenko-Michurinism, also denotes the biological inheritance principle which Trofim Lysenko subscribed to and which derive from theories of the heritability of acquired characteristics, a body of biological inheritance theory which departs from Mendelism and that Lysenko named...

13 - Apologists for Hate

Hans F. K. Günther and “nordicism”
Charles Carroll, Madison Grant
Madison Grant
Madison Grant was an American lawyer, historian and physical anthropologist, known primarily for his work as a eugenicist and conservationist...

, Lothrop Stoddard
Lothrop Stoddard
Theodore Lothrop Stoddard was an American historian, journalist, racial anthropologist, eugenicist, political theorist and anti-immigration advocate who wrote a number of books which are cited by historians as prominent examples of early 20th-century scientific racism.- Biography :Stoddard was...

, and “scientific racism
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...

”

14 - Atlantis and Lemuria

Ignatius Donnelly
Ignatius Donnelly
Ignatius Loyola Donnelly was a U.S. Congressman, populist writer and amateur scientist, known primarily now for his theories concerning Atlantis, Catastrophism , and Shakespearean authorship, all of which modern historians consider to be pseudoscience and pseudohistory...

(again), Lewis Spence
Lewis Spence
James Lewis Thomas Chalmbers Spence was a Scottish journalist, whose efforts as a compiler of Scottish folklore have proved more durable than his efforts as a poet and occult scholar....

and Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
Madame Blavatsky
Madame Blavatsky
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky , was a theosophist, writer and traveler. Between 1848 and 1875 Blavatsky had gone around the world three times. In 1875, Blavatsky together with Colonel H. S. Olcott established the Theosophical Society...

, James Churchward
James Churchward
James Churchward is best known as a British born occult writer. However, he was also a patented inventor, engineer, and expert fisherman....

and Lemuria
Lemuria (continent)
Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical "lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The concept's 19th century origins lie in attempts to account for discontinuities in biogeography; however, the concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern theories of plate tectonics...

15 - The Great Pyramid

John Taylor, Charles Piazzi Smyth
Charles Piazzi Smyth
Charles Piazzi Smyth , was Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1846 to 1888, well-known for many innovations in astronomy and his pyramidological and metrological studies of the Great Pyramid of Giza....

, Charles Taze Russell
Charles Taze Russell
Charles Taze Russell , or Pastor Russell, was a prominent early 20th century Christian restorationist minister from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, and founder of what is now known as the Bible Student movement, from which Jehovah's Witnesses and numerous independent Bible Student groups emerged...

and others with their theories about the Great Pyramid of Giza
Great Pyramid of Giza
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact...

16 - Medical Cults

Samuel Hahnemann
Samuel Hahnemann
Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was a German physician, known for creating an alternative form of medicine called homeopathy.- Early life :Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was born in Meissen, Saxony near Dresden...

, The Organon of the Healing Art
The Organon of the Healing Art
The Organon of the Healing Art by Samuel Hahnemann, 1810, laid the foundations of all theory and method of homeopathy...

, and homeopathy
Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient...
naturopathy, with iridiagnosis, zone therapy and Alexander technique
Alexander Technique
The Alexander Technique teaches the ability to improve physical postural habits, particularly those that have become ingrained and conditioned responses...
Andrew Taylor Still
Andrew Taylor Still
Andrew Taylor Still is considered the father of osteopathy and osteopathic medicine. He was also a physician & surgeon, author, inventor and Kansas territorial & state legislator. He was one of the founders of Baker University, the oldest 4-year college in the state of Kansas, and was the founder...

and osteopathy
Osteopathy
Osteopathy and osteopathic medicine are often used interchangeably for the philosophy and system of alternative medical practice first proposed by A. T. Still MD, DO in 1874....
Daniel D. Palmer and chiropractic
Chiropractic
Chiropractic is a health care profession concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disorders of the neuromusculoskeletal system and the effects of these disorders on general health. It is generally categorized as complementary and alternative medicine...

17 - Medical Quacks

Elisha Perkins
Elisha Perkins
Elisha Perkins was a United States physician who created his own therapy, Perkins Patent Tractors.-Biography:...
Albert Abrams
Albert Abrams
Albert Abrams was an American doctor, well known during his life for inventing machines which he claimed could diagnose and cure almost any disease. These claims were challenged from the outset...

and his defender Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
Ruth Drown
Dinshah Pestanji Framji Ghadiali
color therapy
Gurdjieff
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
Edgar Cayce
Edgar Cayce
Edgar Cayce was an American psychic who allegedly had the ability to give answers to questions on subjects such as healing or Atlantis while in a hypnotic trance...
(in the Appendix) Hoxsey Therapy
Hoxsey Therapy
The Hoxsey Therapy or Hoxsey Method is an alternative medical treatment promoted as a cure for cancer. The treatment consists of a caustic herbal paste for external cancers or an herbal mixture for "internal" cancers, combined with laxatives, douches, vitamin supplements, and dietary changes....

and Krebiozen
Krebiozen
Krebiozen is an alternative cancer treatment. While the substance has been marketed as a cure for cancer, Krebiozen is not known to possess any therapeutic value...

18 - Food Faddists

Horace Fletcher
Horace Fletcher
Horace Fletcher was an American health-food faddist of the Victorian era who earned the nickname "The Great Masticator," by arguing that food should be chewed thirty two times – or, about 100 times per minute – before being swallowed: "Nature will castigate those who don't masticate." He invented...

and Fletcherism
William Howard Hay
William Howard Hay
William Howard Hay, MD was a New York doctor, author, lecturer, and founder of The East Aurora Sun and Diet Sanatorium.A traditional physician for the first 16 years of his career, this New York doctor introduced the world to food combining, ran a successful sanatorium for many years , and was a...

and the Dr. Hay diet
Dr. Hay diet
The Hay Diet is a nutrition method developed by the New York physician William Howard Hay in the 1920s. It claims to work by separating food into three groups: alkaline, acidic, and neutral. Acid foods are not combined with the alkaline ones...
vegetarianism
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...

(“We need not be concerned here with the ethical arguments ...”)
Jerome Irving Rodale
Jerome Irving Rodale
Jerome Irving Rodale , was a playwright, editor, author, and founder of Rodale, Inc....

and organic farming
Organic farming
Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...

, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer
Ehrenfried Pfeiffer
Ehrenfried Pfeiffer was a German scientist, soil scientist, anthroposophist and disciple of Rudolf Steiner.-Life:...

, anthroposophy
Anthroposophy
Anthroposophy, a philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner, postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development...

and biodynamic agriculture
Biodynamic agriculture
Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that emphasizes the holistic development and interrelationships of the soil, plants and animals as a self-sustaining system. Biodynamic farming has much in common with other organic approaches, such as emphasizing the use of manures and composts...
Gayelord Hauser
Gayelord Hauser
Dr. Benjamin Gayelord Hauser , popularly known as Gayelord Hauser, was an American nutritionist and self-help author, who promoted the 'natural way of eating' during the mid-20th century. He promoted foods rich in vitamin B and discouraged consumption of sugar and white flour...
Nutrilite
Nutrilite
Nutrilite is a brand of mineral, vitamin, and dietary supplements created in 1934 by Dr. Carl F. Rehnborg. Nutrilite products are currently manufactured by Access Business Group, a subsidiary of Alticor whose products are sold via the Amway and Amway Global Corporations worldwide...
Dudley J. LeBlanc
Dudley J. LeBlanc
Dudley Joseph "Coozan Dud" LeBlanc was a colorful and popular Democratic and Cajun member of the Louisiana State Senate whose entrepreneurial talents netted him a fortune through the alcohol-laden patent medicine known as "Hadacol." He is also considered the "father of the old age pension" in...

and Hadacol
Hadacol
Hadacol was a patent medicine marketed as a vitamin supplement. Its principal attraction, however, was that it contained 12 percent alcohol , which made it quite popular in the dry counties of the southern United States. It was the product of four-term Louisiana state Senator Dudley J...

19 - Throw Away Your Glasses!

William Horatio Bates, the Bates method
Bates Method
The Bates method is an alternative therapy aimed at improving eyesight. Eye-care physician William Horatio Bates attributed nearly all sight problems to habitual strain of the eyes, and felt that glasses were harmful and never necessary...

, Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...

, The Art of Seeing
The Art of Seeing
The Art of Seeing is a 1942 book by Aldous Huxley, which details his experience with and views on the controversial Bates method, which Huxley believed improved his eyesight.-Huxley’s own sight:...

20 - Eccentric Sexual Theories

Arabella Kenealy
Bernarr Macfadden
Bernarr Macfadden
Bernarr Macfadden was an influential American proponent of physical culture, a combination of bodybuilding with nutritional and health theories...
John R. Brinkley
John R. Brinkley
John Romulus Brinkley was a controversial American medical doctor who experimented with xenotransplantation of goat glands into humans as a means of curing male impotence in clinics across several states, and an advertising and radio pioneer who began the era of Mexican border blaster radio...
Frank Harris
Frank Harris
Frank Harris was a Irish-born, naturalized-American author, editor, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day...
John Humphrey Noyes
John Humphrey Noyes
John Humphrey Noyes was an American utopian socialist. He founded the Oneida Community in 1848. He coined the term "free love".-Early activism:...

and the Oneida Community
Oneida Community
The Oneida Community was a religious commune founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in Oneida, New York. The community believed that Jesus had already returned in the year 70 AD, making it possible for them to bring about Jesus's millennial kingdom themselves, and be free of sin and perfect in this...
Alice Bunker Stockham
Alice Bunker Stockham
thumb|right|Dr Alice Bunker StockhamAlice Bunker Stockham was an obstetrician and gynecologist from Chicago, and the fifth woman to be made a doctor in the United States...

and “karezza”

21 - Orgonomy

Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...

and “orgone
Orgone
Orgone energy is a theory originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich. Reich, originally part of Sigmund Freud's Vienna circle, extrapolated the Freudian concept of libido first as a biophysical and later as a universal life force...

”

22 - Dianetics

L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...

, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health is a book by L. Ron Hubbard which sets out self-improvement techniques he developed, called Dianetics. The book is also one of the canonical texts of Scientology. It is colloquially referred to as Book One...

. (The term Scientology
Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...

had only just been introduced when Gardner’s book was published.)

23 - General Semantics, Etc.

Alfred Korzybski
Alfred Korzybski
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered for developing the theory of general semantics...

, Samuel I. Hayakawa and “general semantics
General Semantics
General semantics is a program begun in the 1920's that seeks to regulate the evaluative operations performed in the human brain. After partial program launches under the trial names "human engineering" and "humanology," Polish-American originator Alfred Korzybski fully launched the program as...

”
Jacob L. Moreno
Jacob L. Moreno
Jacob Levy Moreno was a Jewish Romanian-born Austrian-American leading psychiatrist and psychosociologist, thinker and educator, the founder of psychodrama, and the foremost pioneer of group psychotherapy...

and “psychodrama
Psychodrama
Psychodrama is a method of psychotherapy in which clients utilize spontaneous dramatization, role playing and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno, M.D. psychodrama includes elements of theater, often conducted on a stage where...

”

24 - From Bumps to Handwriting

Francis Joseph Gall and phrenology
Phrenology
Phrenology is a pseudoscience primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules...
physiognomy
Physiognomy
Physiognomy is the assessment of a person's character or personality from their outer appearance, especially the face...

; palmistry:* graphology
Graphology
Graphology is the pseudoscientific study and analysis of handwriting, especially in relation to human psychology. In the medical field, it can be used to refer to the study of handwriting as an aid in diagnosis and tracking of diseases of the brain and nervous system...

25 - ESP and PK

Joseph Banks Rhine
Joseph Banks Rhine
Joseph Banks Rhine was a botanist who later developed an interest in parapsychology and psychology. Rhine founded the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the Journal of Parapsychology, and the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man...

, extra-sensory perception
Extra-sensory perception
Extrasensory perception involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. The term was coined by Frederic Myers, and adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairaudience, and...

and psychokinesis
Psychokinesis
The term psychokinesis , also referred to as telekinesis with respect to strictly describing movement of matter, sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term...
Nandor Fodor
Nandor Fodor
Nandor Fodor was a British and American parapsychologist, psychologist, author and journalist of Hungarian birth, one of the leading authorities on poltergeists, haunting and all kinds of paranormal phenomena usually associated with mediumship...
Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...

(again) and Mental Radio
Mental Radio
Mental Radio: Does it work, and how? was written by the American author Upton Sinclair. This book documents Sinclair's test of psychic abilities of Mary Craig Kimbrough, his second wife, while she was in a state of profound depression with a heightened interest in the occult. She attempted to...
Max Freedom Long
Max Freedom Long
Max Freedom Long was an American teacher and New Thought philosopher.-Early career:Shortly after graduating from UCLA in 1917, Long moved to the island of Hawaii to teach in elementary schools. When he arrived, he claimed that some Native Hawaiians were practicing what he called magic...

26 - Bridey Murphy and Other Matters

Morey Bernstein and Bridey Murphy
Bridey Murphy
Bridey Murphy is the alias of U.S. housewife Virginia Tighe ; the name of the woman Tighe claimed to have been in her previous life.-Hypnotic regression:...
a final plea for orthodoxy and responsibility in publishing

Summary

Critical reception

History

Chapters

See also