Science or pseudoscience : magnetic healing, psychic phenomena, and other heterodoxies / Henry H. Bauer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bauer, Henry H.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science--Miscellanea.

Science.

Belief and doubt.

Parapsychology and science.

Skepticism.

Genre:

Trivia and miscellanea.

Physical Description:

xi, 275 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2001]

Summary:

Ball lightning, polywater, the Loch Ness monster. An exploration of the diffuse and porous borders between science and anomalistics.

Contents:

1. Defining Categories 1

Which Knowledge? Natural Science or Social Science?

Scientific Knowledge: Tried and True?

Being Realistic about Science

How Agreement Is Reached in Science

What about the Social Sciences?

What Gets Called Pseudoscience

2. Anomalistics and Science Compared 19

Contrasting Natural Science and Social Science with Anomalistics

Contrasting Natural Science with Social Science and Anomalistics

3. Knowledge Fights 45

Presumptions

Arena of Dispute

Tactics

Evidence

Probability and Statistics

Typical Fallacies

Ignorance

Closure

Fraud

Actual Cases

4. Pseudoscience within Science 83

N rays

Polywater

Cold Fusion

High-Temperature Superconductivity

More Than Meets the Public Eye

"Pathological" Science

5. Mainstream or Unorthodox? Straddling the Pale 119

Bioelectromagnetics and Life

Archaeoastronomy

Other Borderland Subjects

6. Scientific Heresies: Beyond the Pale 147

Commercial Huckstering

Wellness Quackery

Velikovsky

Wilhelm Reich

Loch Ness Monsters

Extrasensory Perception

Serious Anomalistics

7. Deciding about Scientific Anomalies 176

Demarcation: Substance or Trash?

Unorthodoxy in General

Belief and Action

Acquiring Anomalous Beliefs

Maintaining Anomalous Beliefs

Assessing Evidence

Lack of Guidance

Benefits of Anomalistics.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [239]-264) and index.

ISBN:

0252026012

OCLC:

43434604