Download or read book Bogus Science written by George MELLOAN and published by Lyons Press. This book was released on 2020-09 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Credulity can be expensive. So don't believe everything you hear. It's a good lesson to teach in this modern era in which the communications revolution allows scores of hopeful persuaders to bid for our attention daily, trying to sell us a product, a service, their qualifications for public office or the proposition that our very lives depend on taking their advice. Opinion shapers have learned that their chances of getting attention increases in proportion to the size of the catastrophe they promise if we don't heed their warnings. Thus, in our modern era, we learn that unless we act now, the entire planet and all the life it bears is at risk. Their claims are bolstered by those magic words: "scientists say." This book asserts that the record of such claims shows that they should be taken with a large spoonful of skepticism. Credulity not only can cost a great deal of money, but in some notable cases it has cost lives.
Download or read book Bogus Science written by John Grant and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People take great pride in the scientific culture in which they live. But large parts of society are in fact awash with ideas and preconceptions that are far removed from actual science. Successful science author John Grant turns his attention to this phenomenon, from pyramidology to the law of attraction, paranormal activity and the search for Bigfoot and Atlantis. In a text full of witty observations, delightful asides and deft skewering, Grant is unafraid to expose some of the most popular false beliefs.
Download or read book Corrupted Science written by John Grant and published by See Sharp Press. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A searing exposé of the misuses and misrepresentations of science from the time of Galileo continuing through to the present day, this new edition includes updates on the asbestos industry, the chemicals industry, the sugar industry, the agriculture industry (the abuse of antibiotics), and the automobile industry (lead in gasoline). The final chapter has been expanded to include the full-blooded assault on science mounted by the Trump administration.
Download or read book Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System written by M. Chris Fabricant and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2023-08-22 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in an expanded paperback edition, Innocence Project attorney M. Chris Fabricant presents an insider’s journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role junk science plays in maintaining the status quo. "Fierce and absorbing . . . Fabricant chronicles the battles he and his colleagues have fought to unravel a century of fraudulent experts and the bad court decisions that allowed them to thrive." —Washington Post From CSI to Forensic Files to the celebrated reputation of the FBI crime lab, forensic scientists have long been mythologized in American popular culture as infallible crime solvers. Juries put their faith in "expert witnesses" and innocent people have been executed as a result. Innocent people are still on death row today, condemned by junk science. In 2012, the Innocence Project began searching for prisoners convicted by junk science, and three men, each convicted of capital murder, became M. Chris Fabricant's clients. Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System chronicles the fights to overturn their wrongful convictions and to end the use of the "science" that destroyed their lives. Weaving together courtroom battles from Mississippi to Texas to New York City and beyond, Fabricant takes the reader on a journey into the heart of a broken, racist system of justice and the role forensic science plays in maintaining the status quo. At turns gripping, enraging, illuminating, and moving, Junk Science is a meticulously researched insider's perspective of the American criminal justice system. Previously untold stories of wrongful executions, corrupt prosecutors, and quackery masquerading as science animate Fabricant’s true crime narrative. The paperback edition features a brand-new index as well as an updated introduction and final chapter chronicling the Innocence Project’s continued fight against junk science in courtrooms across America.
Download or read book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science written by Martin Gardner and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-05-04 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fair, witty appraisal of cranks, quacks, and quackeries of science and pseudoscience: hollow earth, Velikovsky, orgone energy, Dianetics, flying saucers, Bridey Murphy, food and medical fads, and much more.
Download or read book Science Fictions written by Stuart Ritchie and published by Arrow. This book was released on 2021-09-16 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Unsettled written by Steven E. Koonin and published by BenBella Books. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Unsettled is a remarkable book—probably the best book on climate change for the intelligent layperson—that achieves the feat of conveying complex information clearly and in depth." —Claremont Review of Books "Surging sea levels are inundating the coasts." "Hurricanes and tornadoes are becoming fiercer and more frequent." "Climate change will be an economic disaster." You've heard all this presented as fact. But according to science, all of these statements are profoundly misleading. When it comes to climate change, the media, politicians, and other prominent voices have declared that "the science is settled." In reality, the long game of telephone from research to reports to the popular media is corrupted by misunderstanding and misinformation. Core questions—about the way the climate is responding to our influence, and what the impacts will be—remain largely unanswered. The climate is changing, but the why and how aren't as clear as you've probably been led to believe. Now, one of America's most distinguished scientists is clearing away the fog to explain what science really says (and doesn't say) about our changing climate. In Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters, Steven Koonin draws upon his decades of experience—including as a top science advisor to the Obama administration—to provide up-to-date insights and expert perspective free from political agendas. Fascinating, clear-headed, and full of surprises, this book gives readers the tools to both understand the climate issue and be savvier consumers of science media in general. Koonin takes readers behind the headlines to the more nuanced science itself, showing us where it comes from and guiding us through the implications of the evidence. He dispels popular myths and unveils little-known truths: despite a dramatic rise in greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures actually decreased from 1940 to 1970. What's more, the models we use to predict the future aren't able to accurately describe the climate of the past, suggesting they are deeply flawed. Koonin also tackles society's response to a changing climate, using data-driven analysis to explain why many proposed "solutions" would be ineffective, and discussing how alternatives like adaptation and, if necessary, geoengineering will ensure humanity continues to prosper. Unsettled is a reality check buoyed by hope, offering the truth about climate science that you aren't getting elsewhere—what we know, what we don't, and what it all means for our future.
Download or read book Spooky Science written by John Grant and published by Union Square + ORM. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hilarious lampoon of scientific inquiry into the psychic. Life after death, spirit communication, the astral plane, reincarnation: on the relatively rare occasions when scientists have tried to apply their methods to the paranormal, they’ve often ended up embarrassed—fooled by obvious charlatans, deluded into making irrational and unsubstantiated claims, or frustrated in their attempt to find something that just isn’t there. John Grant—author of Discarded Science and Corrupted Science—investigates the pseudoscience of spooky stuff to fascinating and humorous effect. From scamming mediums, to poltergeist fakery, to heavenly hallucinations, Grant spares ardent believers and gullible thinkers no mercy in this rollicking history of psychic “phenomena.”
Download or read book Voodoo Science written by Robert L. Park and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Occasionally in the world of science, unexpected results that appear to violate accepted laws of nature can herald revolutionary advances in human knowledge. Many of these 'revolutionary' discoveries do, however, turn out to be wrong, and eminent scientists must carry the burden of a tarnished reputation for mistakenly thinking they have made a great discovery. In this entertaining text, Robert Park examines the social, economic, and political forces that elicit or support flawed or fake science and then go on to sustain it in the face of often overwhelming contrary evidence. Readers are made aware of the fine line that exists between foolishness and fraud and are warned against irrational beliefs dressed up as scientific garb.
Download or read book Invented Knowledge written by Ronald H. Fritze and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2009-05-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This incredible exploration of the murky world of pseudo-history reveals the mix of proven facts, informed speculation, and pure fiction behind lost continents, ancient super-civilizations, and conspiratorial cover-ups—as well as the revisionist historical foundations of religions such as the Nation of Islam and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Drawing on the best scholarship available, Ronald H. Fritze shows that in spite of strong, mainstream historical evidence to the contrary, many of these ideas have proved durable and gained widespread acceptance. As the examples in Invented Knowledge reveal, pseudo-historians capitalize on and exploit anomalies in evidence to support their claims, rather than examining the preponderance of research as a whole.
Download or read book Bogus Science written by John Grant and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of pseudoscience looks at such topics as the power of crystals, the UFO phenomenon, and the interpretation of the Bible as accurate science.
Download or read book Making Sense of Science written by Cornelia Dean and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-13 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cornelia Dean draws on her 30 years as a science journalist with the New York Times to expose the flawed reasoning and knowledge gaps that handicap readers when they try to make sense of science. She calls attention to conflicts of interest in research and the price society pays when science journalism declines and funding dries up.
Download or read book Good Science Bad Science Pseudoscience and Just Plain Bunk written by Peter Daempfle and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are constantly bombarded with breaking scientific news in the media, but we are almost never provided with enough information to assess the truth of these claims. Does drinking coffee really cause cancer? Does bisphenol-A in our tin can linings really cause reproductive damage? Good Science, Bad Science, Pseudoscience, and Just Plain Bunk teaches readers how to think like a scientist to question claims like these more critically. Peter A. Daempfle introduces readers to the basics of scientific inquiry, defining what science is and how it can be misused. Through provocative real-world examples, the book helps readers acquire the tools needed to distinguish scientific truth from myth. The book celebrates science and its role in society while building scientific literacy.
Download or read book Why I Am Not a Scientist written by Jonathan Marks and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-06-23 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This lively and provocative book casts an anthropological eye on the field of science in a wide-ranging and innovative discussion that integrates philosophy, history, sociology, and auto-ethnography. Jonathan Marks examines biological anthropology, the history of the life sciences, and the literature of science studies while upending common understandings of science and culture with a mixture of anthropology, common sense, and disarming humor. Science, Marks argues, is widely accepted to be three things: a method of understanding and a means of establishing facts about the universe, the facts themselves, and a voice of authority or a locus of cultural power. This triple identity creates conflicting roles and tensions within the field of science and leads to its record of instructive successes and failures. Among the topics Marks addresses are the scientific revolution, science as thought and performance, creationism, scientific fraud, and modern scientific racism. Applying his considerable insight, energy, and wit, Marks sheds new light on the evolution of science, its role in modern culture, and its challenges for the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Mad Science written by Stuart A. Kirk and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2013-04-04 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it comes to understanding and treating madness, distortions of research are not rare, misinterpretation of data is not isolated, and bogus claims of success are not voiced by isolated researchers seeking aggrandizement. This book's detailed analyses of coercion and community treatment, diagnosis, and psychopharmacology reveals that these characteristics of bad science are endemic, institutional, and protected in psychiatry. This is mad science. Mad Science argues that the fundamental claims of modern American psychiatry are not based on convincing research, but on misconceived, flawed, and distorted science. The authors address multiple paradoxes in American mental health, including the remaking of coercion into scientific psychiatric treatment in the community, the adoption of an unscientific diagnostic system that now controls the distribution of services, and how drug treatments have failed to improve the mental health outcome. This book provides an engaging and readable scientific and social critique of current mental health practices. The authors are scholars, researchers, and clinicians who have written extensively about community care, diagnosis, and psychoactive drugs. Mad Science is a must read for all specialists in the field as well as for the informed public.
Download or read book The Great Mental Models Volume 1 written by Shane Parrish and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2024-10-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.
Download or read book Science Good Bad and Bogus written by Martin Gardner and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lively collection, Gardner examines the rich and hilarious variety of pseudoscientific conjectures that dominate the media today. With a special emphasis on parapsychology and occultism, these witty pieces address the evidence put forth to support claims of ESP, psychokinesis, faith healing, and other pseudoscience.
