Published: March 14, 2011
Words: 65,732 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9780979900259

Short description

2011 Silver Award Winner for Humor in the Independent Publishers Awards! "Bad Science" takes a humorous look at bloodletting, alchemy, quack devices, the worship of meteorites, faked data, and secret testing on people. The history of science has been fraught with persecution, fraud,and ignorance on a massive scale, but that doesn't mean we can't laugh about it!

Extended description

2011 Silver Medal Award Winner for Humor in the Independent Publisher's Awards! The contest is one of the oldest and largest, and this year included 4,000 books from around the world. "Bad Science: A Brief History of Bizarre Misconceptions, Totally Wrong Conclusions, and Incredibly Stupid Theories" takes a humorous look at bloodletting, alchemy, quack devices, the worship of meteorites, faked data, and secret testing on people. The history of science has been fraught with persecution, fraud,and ignorance on a massive scale, but that doesn't mean we can't laugh about it!
Chapters include: 1 Medicine, 2 Chemistry and Pharmaceuticals, 3 Birth, Contraception & Sex, 4 Dentistry, 5 Geology, Paleontology, Archaeology (and other things found in dirt), 6 Astronomy & the Space Program,and 7 Scientists, Heredity, DNA, Firearms, and Everything Else that didn't Fit into Previous Categories.

Tags

humor, history, medicine, science, archaeology, astronomy, dentistry, heredity, chemistry, geology, rockets, space program, paleontolgy, quack devices, linda zimmermann

Available ebook reading formats

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Videos

Bad Science: Episode 1: Fossils
Author Linda Zimmermann talks about an arrogant professor with some ridiculous ideas about fossils, who was duped by some rocks depicting incredible images.

Bad Science: Episode 2: Quack Devices
Author Linda Zimmermann talks about a device reputed to cure everything from dandruff to glaucoma.

Bad Science: Episode 3: Teeth
Author Linda Zimmermann discusses what people used to believe caused cavities, and how they attempted to treat them.

Bad Science Episode 4: Bad Quotes
Bad Science author Linda Zimmermann reveals some regrettable but unforgettable statements about science.

Reviews

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Review by: Paolo Amoroso on June 14, 2012 :
The author tells in a simple to understand, humorous way an impressive amount of scientific errors, misconceptions, superstitions, and frauds spread throughout history and across many disciplines. I am an astronomy educator and found a few in my field I was not aware of. However, I'd classify some of the reported episodes (e.g. the initial optical manufacturing errors and inadequate testing of the Hubble Space Telescope) more as scientific blunders than bad science, but this may be a minor classification issue.
(reviewed long after purchase)

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