Properly analyzed, the collective mythological and religious writings
of humanity reveal that around 1500 BC, a comet swept perilously close
to Earth, triggering widespread natural disasters and threatening the
destruction of all life before settling into solar orbit as Venus, our
nearest planetary neighbor. Sound implausible? Well, from 1950
until the late 1970s, a huge number of people begged to differ, as
they devoured Immanuel Velikovsky’s major best-seller, Worlds in
Collision, insisting that perhaps this polymathic thinker held the key
to a new science and a new history. Scientists, on the other hand,
assaulted Velikovsky’s book, his followers, and his press
mercilessly from the get-go. In The Pseudoscience Wars, Michael D.
Gordin resurrects the largely forgotten figure of Velikovsky and uses
his strange career and surprisingly influential writings to explore
the changing definitions of the line that separates legitimate
scientific inquiry from what is deemed bunk, and to show how vital
this question remains to us today. Drawing on a wealth of previously
unpublished material from Velikovsky’s personal archives, Gordin
presents a behind-the-scenes history of the writer’s career, from
his initial burst of success through his growing influence on the
counterculture, heated public battles with such luminaries as Carl
Sagan, and eventual eclipse. Along the way, he offers fascinating
glimpses into the histories and effects of other fringe doctrines,
including creationism, Lysenkoism, parapsychology, and more—all of
which have surprising connections to Velikovsky’s theories.
Science today is hardly universally secure, and scientists seem
themselves beset by critics, denialists, and those they label
“pseudoscientists”—as seen all too clearly in battles over
evolution and climate change. The Pseudoscience Wars simultaneously
reveals the surprising Cold War roots of our contemporary dilemma and
points readers to a different approach to drawing the line between
knowledge and nonsense.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780226304434
Publisert
2018
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Chicago Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter