Editorial Reviews
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Where does science end and fruitcakery begin? How can you tell the difference between the cutting edge, the speculative, and the wacky? Physicist Michael Friedlander looks all around the fringes of science and gives a helpful guide to drawing the lines. He is particularly good at showing science as a communal endeavor, with the strengths and weaknesses that implies, and he gives a more truthful account than is usual of how scientific journals and conferences actually work. Friedlander frankly admits that scientists have sometimes manufactured their own social problems, usually through arrogance. He is a "modified realist"; he provides checklists so you can tell the difference between a Galileo and a Velikovsky, but he also shows how scientists like Alfred Wegner (who thought up continental drift) can be essentially correct and yet not be believed. He even reveals one of the open secrets of science: that a theory can be incorrect or widely doubted, like the idea of a "fifth force" in physics, and still be a fruitful source of new research. --Mary Ellen Curtin
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
At the Fringes of Science,Michael W. Friedlander,Westview Pr (Short Disc),0813322006,Discoveries in science,Fraud in science,General,Science,Science (General),Science/Mathematics,Serendipity in science
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