Fads and fallacies in the name of science

Martin Gardner

As I pointed out in the previous post, Martin Gardner published in 1952 a book with the same title as this one. My edition, dated in 1957, contains an updating appendix and a new chapter, making a total of 26 chapters. Each chapter refers to one or more cases of pseudoscience. The book bears the following subtitle:

A study in human gullibility

I am sure that more than one of my readers will be outraged by at least one of Gardner’s selected pseudosciences, because they will not be considered pseudoscience. Like any human activity, the critique of pseudosciences is also debatable. I am not going to give my opinion. I will just summarize Gardner’s pseudosciences, although not all of them, for a few are no longer interesting. Nor will I mention those that have appeared after the publication of Gardner’s book, although I will dedicate other posts to some of these.

This is the (incomplete) list of Gardner’s pseudosciences (their classification is mine):

1. 
   Geographical pseudosciences: The flat Earth theory. The hollow Earth theories. I wrote two posts about the second: this one and this one.
2. Astronomical pseudosciences: Velikovsky’s catastrophic theory, which I described in the previous post. Hörbiger’s theory of Moons. Flying saucers (the alien origin of UFOs).
3. Physical pseudosciences: Theories against Newton and against Einstein. There are many of the latter. I have read some. The authors don’t usually know a lot about the theory of Relativity. Instead of studying it seriously, they think they know everything because they have read some popular book. A technological version of this type of theory tries to get rid of the action of gravity, one of the classic themes of science fiction since The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells.
4. Geological pseudosciences: Almost all proceed from Protestant fundamentalist sects that hold that the six days of Creation and the chronology of the book of Genesis is a literal reality. One of these theories holds that God created the world in the way Genesis describes it, but with the appearance of having lasted many billions of years. This is a version of the theory that five minutes ago God created the world and each of us as adults with fictitious memories of our past. As is well known, this theory is irrefutable (and therefore not scientific).
5. Biological pseudosciences: Here we can classify Lysenko's anti-Darwinian theories, which became dominant in Josef Stalin’s USSR, and modern theories that defend the spontaneous generation of living beings (usually microorganisms), even though Louis Pasteur showed that under current conditions it is impossible.

6. 

   Groucho Marx

   Medical pseudosciences: They are more numerous than in any other science. Among many others, Gardner describes homeopathy, naturopathy, iridiagnosis (diagnosis by the iris), osteopathy, chiropractic, vision without glasses, vegetarianism, organic agriculture, and the advocates of various panacea drugs, which would cure almost all diseases (including cancer). In this regard, Gardner cites an interview Groucho Marx did with Dudley J. LeBlanc, a Louisiana state senator and inventor of the Hadacol. Marx asked: What is Hadacol good for? This was the senator’s response: For five and a half million for me last year.

7. Psychiatric pseudosciences: These include orgonomy (which relates all mental problems to orgasm), dianetics, the general semantics of the Polish Count Korzybski and psychodrama. Dianetics is a mental healing procedure created by Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer who characterized his own invention as follows: The creation of Dianetics is a milestone for Man comparable to the discovery of fire and superior to his inventions of the wheel and arch. Science fiction writers and their readers seem quite prone to accepting this kind of pseudoscience, perhaps influenced by their own activity in the genre. In addition to Hubbard, John Campbell Jr. and A.E. van Vogt were fans of some of these medical and psychiatric pseudosciences.
8. Anthropological pseudosciences: Gardner cites the theories of Aryan racial superiority dominant in Hitler's Germany, phrenology, graphology, extrasensory perception, psychokinetics, spiritualism, and reincarnation.
9. Historical pseudosciences: Those that defend the real existence of Atlantis, Lemuria, and those related to the Great Pyramid.

Not bad, right? Now let every reader critique Martin Gardner’s selection of pseudosciences.

The same post in Spanish

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Manuel Alfonseca