Science: Good, Bad and Bogus

Martin Gardner

Prometheus, 1989, 408 pp, index, €22,70, ISBN 0-87975-573-3. page views.

Absolutely fascinating!

Isaac Asimov

Gardner has become a priceless national resource.... This collection is Gardner at his best.

Stephen Jay Gould

Dazzling.

Time

Gardner is a delight to read.... Splendid.

The New Yorker

As downright and factually devastating as one could imagine. ... Gardner ... does his homework thoroughly.

Times Literary Supplement

Gardner wields Occam's razor like a switchblade.

Newsweek

About the Book

Written as a sequel to Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, Martin Gardner's classic Science: Good, Bad and Bogus discusses the shabbiness of the evidence supporting research claims in such areas as ESP, psychokinesis, faith healing, precognition and psychic surgery and includes am exposé of the major secrets of Uri Geller. He has brought these pieces up to date and includes angry letters from readers and his responses to them. Gardner advocates the need for better controls in parapsychological research and the even greater need for better public understanding of the difference between good and bad science.

Science: Good, Bad and Bogus is the strongest attack written to dadte on the recent occult explosion. At times satirical, at time humorous, and always informative, it is essential reading for all followers of modern science.

About the Author

Martin Gardner, for many years author of the "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American, has written many books, including The New Age: Notes of a Fringe-Watcher and The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix. He is fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.

Contents

• Introduction
• Part one
1. Hermit Scientists
2. "Bourgeois Indealism" in Soviet Nuclear Physics
3. The Ars Magna of Ramon Lull
4. Some Trends in Pseudoscience
5. Manifesto of the Institute of General Eclectics
6. Dermo-optical Perception: A Peek Down the Nose
7. Targ's ESP Teaching Machine
8. Magic and Paraphysics
9. The Irrelevance of Conan Doyle
10. Great Fakes of Science
11. Fliess, Freud and Biorythm
12. A Skeptic's View of Parapsychology
13. Einstein and ESP
14. A Second Einstein ESP Letter
15. Geller, Gulls and Nitinol
16. The Extraordinary Mental Bending of Professor Taylor
17. Quantum Theory and Quack Theory
18. Tart's Failed Replication
• Part Two
19. "ESP: A Scientific Evaluation"
20. "Ideas in Conflicht"
21. "ESP, Seers and Psychics"
22. "The Roots of Coincidence"
23. "Arthur Ford"
24. "The Preachers"
25. "Uri" and "Arigo"
26. "The New Nonsense" and "Supersenses"
27. "Superminds" and "The Magic of Uri Geller"
28. "Powers of Mind"
29. "The Gift of Inner Healing"
30. "Mind-Reach" and "The Search for Superman"
31. "Learning to Use Extrasensory Perception"
32. Seven Books on Black Holes
33. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
34. "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television"
35. Four Books on Catastrophe Theory
36. "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" and "Lifetide"
37. "Broca's Brain"
38. Two Books on Talking Apes

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