Kirjahaku

What is science? Is social science a science? Why are more and more so-called scientific discoveries being exposed as outright frauds? Henry Bauer tackles these and many more intriguing questions that are emerging from within the academic and scientific communities and attracting attention from the popular media and the general public. Whether one is a specialist or generalist, scientist or humanist, thinker or activist, it is important to understand the place of science and technology in modern life. Popular views about the nature of science and scientific activity contain serious misconceptions that were discarded decades ago by most historians and philosophers of science. The perpetuation of these misconceptions usually surface in the form of frustrating and unproductive discussions about everything from setting policy and defining technical matters to whether one individual's point of view is "right" because it is supported by "scientific facts." According to Bauer, the most serious and widespread misconceptions are that "science" can be discussed as though all sciences share a great deal in common and as though "the scientific method" characterizes all sciences. "Science," argues Bauer, "can be understood only if one recognizes it as a quest by fallible human beings who have evolved ways of interacting that help them gain relatively objective knowledge." In other words, science is a social activity, not simply the result of impersonal methods. Concern has recently arisen over the quality of American education and our declining scientific and research orientation. Debates are emerging about what direction public universities should be taking as we head into the twenty-first century. Why and to what extent should society support basic scientific research? What should everyone in a democratic society know about science? This book will help readers come to an informed understanding about the place of science and technology in today's world.

Although science attempts to draw a clear line separating its endeavors from those of "pseudoscience," Henry Bauer reveals that the distinction is both equivocal and misleading. Setting aside science's snowy mantle of truth, Bauer presents pseudoscience--or anomalistics--not as the opposite of science but as something that develops parallel to it. Science assumes anomalies--that is, phenomena that contradict the existing store of knowledge--result from error, contamination, or even deception: in short, from bad research technique, at best, and deliberate hoax, at worst. Anomalists, by contrast, accept such occurrences, often on the basis of eyewitness claims, as important in themselves and worthy of further study, even if they contradict prevailing theories and offer a minimal degree of reproducibility. Science or Pseudoscience explores the diffuse and porous borders between mainstream and unorthodoxy. A scientist himself, Bauer points out that some phenomena that have turned out to be spurious, such as polywater and cold fusion, were for a time taken quite seriously by respected members of the scientific community. Other anomalies, such as ball lightning and meteorites, were dismissed by many scientists but turned out to be legitimate discoveries. Meanwhile, science has failed to prove that phenomena encompassed by the "big three" subjects in anomalistics--parapsychology, ufology, and cryptozoology (e.g., the Loch Ness monster)--do not exist. Rather, science theorizes that these phenomena cannot exist, since today's scientific laws seem to hold them to be impossible. Bauer discusses anomalies such as archaeoastronomy (e.g., Stonehenge) and bioelectromagnetics and looks at how institutional, commercial, and political interests influence borderline research in mainstream laboratories. He also draws a distinction between fraud and commercial huckstering, on the one hand, and genuine knowledge-seeking about matters ignored by the established intellectual disciplines, on the other. Bauer notes that the more closely anomalistic research approaches science, the more strenuously it is criticized by the establishment, often in terms of heresy. Reminding us that geniuses are cranks who happen to be right while cranks may be geniuses who happen to be wrong, Science or Pseudoscience offers a measured and thoughtful assessment of this volatile debate.

Thanks to enormous funding for educational programs, the whole world "knows" that HIV causes AIDS. But is what we know compatible with the facts? This book challenges the conventional wisdom on this issue. Collating and analyzing, for the first time, the results of more than two decades of HIV testing, it reveals that the common assumptions about HIV and AIDS are incompatible with the published data. Among the many topics explored are the failings of HIV testing, statistical evidence that HIV is neither sexually transmitted nor increasingly prevalent, and problems caused by the differing diagnostic criteria for AIDS around the world. But how could everyone have been so wrong for so long? This vital question, unaddressed in previous works questioning the HIV-AIDS connection, is central to this book. The author considers comparable missteps of modern science, and discusses how funding influences discovery in today's scientific circles.

The nature of scientific activity has changed dramatically over the last half century, and the objectivity and rigorous search for evidence that once defined it are being abandoned. Increasingly, this text argues, dogma has taken the place of authentic science. This study examines how conflicts of interest--both institutional and individual--have become pervasive in the science world, and also explores the troubling state of research funding and flaws of the peer-review process. It looks in depth at the dominance of several specific theories, including the Big Bang cosmology, human-caused global warming, HIV as a cause of AIDS, and the efficacy of anti-depressant drugs. In a scientific environment where distinguished experts who hold contrary views are shunned, this book is an important contribution to the examination of scientific heterodoxies.

This book discusses the ways in which science, the touchstone of reliable knowledge in modern society, changed dramatically in the second half of the 20th century, becoming less trustworthy through conflicts of interest and excessive competitiveness. Fraud became common enough that organized efforts to combat it now include a federal Office of Research Integrity. Competent minority opinions are sometimes thereby suppressed, with the result that policy makers, the media and the public are presented with biased or incomplete information. Evidence tending to challenge established theories is sometimes rejected without addressing its substance. While most would agree in the abstract that science can go wrong, few would consider--despite interesting contrary evidence--that official consensus about the origins of the universe or the causes of global warming might be mistaken.