Book Review: Voodoo Science

During the cavalcade of April Fool's spoofs here on /., one submission stuck in my mind as fascinating and enjoyable -- and a complete scam. It was about an alleged anti-gravity disc, made from a 12" superconducting ring that looked not unlike a brake pad. As luck would have it, I was reading the book Voodoo Science at the time and thought once the April Fools hoopla had died down that I'd do a review of it for Slashdot, so read on if you care to. Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud author Robert Park pages 230 publisher Oxford University Press rating 4/5 reviewer chrisd ISBN 0195147103 summary Robert Park exposes how bad science propogates. Perhaps I should have posted the story, but in the end that sort of pseudo-scientific chicanery doesn't even deserve the attention that /. would bring it on April Fool's day.

The short review of Voodoo Science is that this is not a book that would make a good birthday gift for Alex Chiu or for that matter Deepak Chopra.

Voodoo Science is a happy little bon-bon of a book for the scientifically inclined. Robert Park is the head of the Washington office of the American Physical Society, and has worked inside the beltway helping the U.S. government and others understand the basics of science so they can make appropriate policy decisions. It is depressingly clear how badly they need it.

While there is a certain level of joy to be found in reading about Mr. Park's exploits debunking cranks and frauds, there is a sad realization that prominent legislators have no clue as to the physical laws that are the underpinnings of science. No, I wasn't surprised, but it was depressing nonetheless to see Trent Lott's name on a resolution designed to push through a patent on a "free energy" device, or Tom Harkin using his power to force the NIH to embrace alternative medicine as anything other than a placebo.

While fun, this isn't a perfect book. It is organized a little strangely, with subheadings throwing off the flow of reading, and at a little over 200 pages it seems too short.Park's mission with this book was not to dissect the great scientific frauds of all time, but I thought he could have spent more time on the issues he did bring up and less on trying to understand the Alex Chius of the world. Mr. Park is probably just trying to be polite, but in my reading of Voodoo Science he comes off as being too soft on the very targets of the book.

The case of cold fusion is a perfect example. His recounting of the famous events was right on, but it just fell flat when it came to to point the finger at Pons, Fleischman and the University of Utah for their complicity in fraud before the Utah state legislature. It is akin to writing a book about Enron and saying about Ken Lay: "It is likely he knew what he was doing was possibly improper."

I'd recommend Voodoo Science as a good gift to a younger reader, as it describes foundations of science in an accessible way. As you've probably gathered, an appropriate name for this book might be "The Laws of Thermodynamics and those that thought it didn't apply to them." As such, the book serves as a decent introduction to critical thinking about the physical world around us.

You can purchase Voodoo Science from bn.com. Want to see your own review here? Just read the book review guidelines, then use Slashdot's handy submission form.

Comments

Secondhand Smoke, Global Warmning, etc.

[Sheepdot]

Junk science has existed for ages, just look at the expansion of the Global Warmning religion and the tactics of organizations out to fight "Secondhand Smoke".

Even such groups as JEL (Just Eliminate Lies), a sort of truth.com for teens in Iowa, advocate teasing smokers about impotence. This is akin to laughing at obese people and joking about death from a heart attack.

Global Warmning activists, meanwhile, have approached the subject with such religious fervor that "denominations" exist in which they all disagree over small points, yet refuse to even debate the large points, such as a response to the UHIE argument that junk science debunkers have been pleading for them to answer for YEARS.

I know I'm not the first to say it but...

[SkyLeach]

I couldn't leave this review without commenting on this: "...or Tom Harkin using his power to force the NIH to embrace alternative medicine as anything other than a placebo. " statement.

Consider E=MC^2: Matter is energy, and energy is matter. Molecular structures break down as they release energy. Living things absorb energy (calories) by breaking down other materials.

We understand so little about life and energy and yet normally reasonable people are willing to throw out an entire realm of science because it threatens their superiority complex. Some things in this world might just be beyond Newton and Einstein's realm of expertise. To say that alternative medicine is placebo flies in the face of every single person who believes in an afterlife and a soul. Nearly three billion people might be wrong about that belief, but they sure as hell deserve to be credibly examined first.

Re:I've read this book as well

[JimPooley]

And here am I without modpoints to mod this fuckwit down. Insightful my arse!

But don't you just love the way he tries to link the complete bollocks that is 'alternative medicine' to open source to get support?

Alternative Medicine

[hprotagonist0]

Alternative medicine is most certainly not all a placebo effect, and to say as much is to completely disregard the principles of science. While much homeopathy certainly bunk, there are a lot of treatments that may have real medical merit, which we simply do not realize yet, and have yet to be studied scientifically.

I saw an article a few years ago, I think it was in Scientific American, about a researcher who placed a number of volunteers in an fMRI and had an acupunturist stimulate what he held to be a "vision point" in the subjects' foot. Amazingly enough, there was a sigificant change in activity of the subjects' visual cortex. However, in some people, the amount of activity increased, while in others it decreased. When this was pointed out to the acupunturist, he said, "Of course. Yin and Yang." He then proceed to correctly identify with something like 90% accuracy which subjects' activity went up and which ones went down.

The moral of this story is don't discount what you don't understand; it's unscientifc.

Re:double blind trials

[streetlawyer]

Personalities like yours are another