Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science

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'''''Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science''''',<ref>Martin Gardner, ''Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science,'' Dover Publications, 1957 (2nd edition). ISBN 978-0-486-20394-2</ref> [[Martin Gardner]]'s second book, is an early classic and foundational text of the movement for [[scientific skepticism]]. It contains a fairly comprehensive survey of [[crank]] beliefs as they existed in the 1950s. The book was first published in 1952 as ''In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present.''

In the preface to the second edition, published in 1957, Gardner wrote:

{{cquote|The first edition of this book prompted many curious letters from irate readers. The most violent letters came from [[Wilhelm Reich|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 [[homeopathy|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 [[Bates eye method|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 [[Stopped clock|objected to one chapter]] only, thinking all the others excellent.}}

This must have been before the rise of [[crank magnetism]].

==Contents==
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.

# ''In the Name of Science'', an introductory chapter
# ''Flat and Hollow''
#* the [[Flat Earth]] theory of Wilbur Glenn Voliva
#* the [[Hollow Earth]] theories of John Cleves Symmes, Jr. and [[Cyrus Reed Teed]]
# ''Monsters of Doom''
#* [[Immanuel Velikovsky]]’s ''Worlds in Collision''
#* William Whiston’s ''A New Theory of the Earth''
#* [[Ignatius Donnelly]]’s ''[[Ragnarok]]''; Hanns Hörbiger’s [[Welteislehre]] and Hörbiger’s disciple Hans Schindler Bellamy.
# ''The Forteans''
#* [[Charles Fort]], Tiffany Thayer and the [[Forteanism|Fortean Society]]
#* The Hutchins-Adler ''Great Books Movement'': "most of them regard [[scientists]], on the whole, as a stupid lot."
# ''[[Flying saucer|Flying Saucers]]''
#* [[Kenneth Arnold]], the Mantell UFO Incident
#* Raymond Palmer, Richard Shaver, Donald Keyhoe, Frank Scully, Gerald Heard and the [[Unidentified flying object]] movement
# ''Zig-Zag-and-Swirl''
#* [[Alfred Lawson]] and his “Lawsonomy”
# ''[[Anti-relativity|Down with Einstein]]!''
#* Joseph Battell, Thomas H. Graydon, George Francis Gillette, Jeremiah J. Callahan and others.
# ''Sir Isaac Babson''
#* [[Roger Babson]] and the [[Gravity Research Foundation]]
# ''[[Dowsing]] Rods and Doodlebugs''
#* Solcol W. Tromp and radiesthesia
#* Kenneth Roberts, Henry Gross and their [[dowsing]]
# ''Under the Microscope''
#* Andrew Crosse, Henry Charlton Bastian Charles Wentworth Littlefield and others who observed [[Abiogenesis|spontaneous generation of living forms]]
# ''Geology versus Genesis''
#* Philip Henry Gosse and his ''[[Omphalos hypothesis|Omphalos]]''
#* George McCready Price and ''The New Geology''
#* Mortimer Adler’s writings on evolution
#* Hilaire Belloc’s debate with H. G. Wells
# ''Lysenkoism''
#* [[Lamarck]] and [[Lamarckism]]; [[Trofim Lysenko|Lysenko]] and [[Lysenkoism]]
# ''Apologists for Hate''
#* Hans F. K. Günther and “nordicism”
#* Charles Carroll, [[Madison Grant]], Lothrop Stoddard, and “[[scientific racism]]”
# ''Atlantis and Lemuria''
#* [[Ignatius Donnelly]] (again), [[Lewis Spence]] and [[Atlantis]]
#* [[Helena Blavatsky|Madame Blavatsky]], James Churchward and [[Lemuria]]
# ''The Great Pyramid''
#* John Taylor, Charles Piazzi Smyth, Charles Taze Russell and others with their theories about the [[Pyramid|Great Pyramid of Giza]]
# ''Medical Cults''
#* [[Samuel Hahnemann]], ''The Organon of the Healing Art'', and [[homeopathy]]
#* [[Naturopathy]], with [[iridodiagnosis|iridiagnosis]], [[zone therapy]] and Alexander technique
#* [[Andrew Taylor Still]] and [[osteopathy]]
#* Daniel D. Palmer and [[chiropractic]]
# ''Medical Quacks''
#* Elisha Perkins
#* Albert Abrams and his defender Upton Sinclair
#* Ruth Drown
#* [[Dinshah Pestanji Framji Ghadiali]]
#* [[Color therapy]]
#* Gurdjieff
#* [[Aleister Crowley]]
#* [[Edgar Cayce]]
#* (in the Appendix) Hoxsey Therapy and Krebiozen
# ''Food Faddists''
#* Horace Fletcher and Fletcherism
#* William Howard Hay and the Dr. Hay diet
#* [[Vegetarianism]] (“We need not be concerned here with the ethical arguments …”)
#* Jerome Irving Rodale and [[organic farming]]
#* [[Rudolf Steiner]], Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, [[anthroposophy]] and [[Rudolf Steiner#Biodynamic farming|biodynamic agriculture]]
#* [[Gayelord Hauser]]
#* Nutrilite
#* Dudley J. LeBlanc and [[Hadacol]]
# ''Throw Away Your Glasses!''
#* [[William Horatio Bates]], the [[Bates eye method|Bates method]], [[Aldous Huxley]], ''The Art of Seeing''
# ''Eccentric Sexual Theories''
#* Arabella Kenealy
#* [[Bernarr Macfadden]]
#* [[John R. Brinkley]]
#* Frank Harris
#* John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida Community
#* Alice Bunker Stockham and “karezza”
# ''Orgonomy''
#* [[Wilhelm Reich]] and “[[orgone]]”
# ''Dianetics''
#* [[L. Ron Hubbard]], ''[[Dianetics|Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health]]''. (The term ''[[Scientology]]'' had only just been introduced when Gardner’s book was published.)
# ''General Semantics, Etc.''
#* Alfred Korzybski, Samuel I. Hayakawa and “general semantics”
#* Jacob L. Moreno and “psychodrama”
# ''From Bumps to Handwriting''
#* Francis Joseph Gall and [[phrenology]]
#* Physiognomy; [[palmistry]]: [[graphology]]
# ''ESP and PK''
#* Joseph Banks Rhine, [[extra-sensory perception]] and [[psychokinesis]]
#* Nandor Fodor
#* Upton Sinclair (again) and ''Mental Radio''
#* Max Freedom Long
# '' Bridey Murphy and Other Matters''
#* Morey Bernstein and Bridey Murphy
#* a final plea for orthodoxy and responsibility in publishing.

==External links==
*[https://store.doverpublications.com/0486203948.html ''Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science''] at Dover Publications

==References==
{{reflist|80%}}

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[[Category:Skepticism]]

Categories: Books, Skepticism