Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An entertaining and irreverent expose of science gone wrong
In his critically acclaimed success 200% of Nothing, A.K. Dewdney revealed the alarming shenanigans of those who use "bad math" to deceive us. Now he turns his sharp-witted eye on the practitioners of "bad science" and offers an equally amusing and informative tour of the often odd, sometimes disturbing mistakes scientists make. Dewdney profiles eight notorious cases of bad science, revealing fundamental errors from the subtle to the ridiculous, including claims hailing from major research centers backed by millions of dollars of funding. We learn the inside scoop about the infamous fusion fiasco, scrutinize the strange saga of the media-hyped Biosphere, probe the appealing but flawed logic of the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, and much more.
Written in Dewdney's trademark humorous style and full of intriguing and eye-opening facts and figures
A.K. DEWDNEY (London, Ontario) is the author of 200% of Nothing (Wiley) as well as past author of the popular "Mathematical Recreations" column in Scientific American.
An Eye-Opening Tour Through the Twists and Turns of Bad Science A.K. Dewdney.
"We need more books like this-especially if they're this much fun to read."-Wired.
"Written with wit and a touch of pathos-and sure to please science lovers."-Scientific American.
A deliciously irreverent expose of science gone wrong.
In his critically acclaimed book 200% of Nothing, A.K. Dewdney revealed the absurd shenanigans of those who use "bad math" to deceive us. Now he focuses his mercilessly comic perspective on the practitioners of "bad science" and offers an equally entertaining and informative tour of eight notorious cases of bad science, ranging from the subtle (the infamous cold fusion fiasco) to the ridiculous (the case of the phantom "N-rays").
A.K. Dewdney (London, Ontario) is the author of A Mathematical Mystery Tour, 200% of Nothing (both from Wiley), The Armchair Universe, and The Planiverse. He is the former Mathematical Recreations columnist for Scientific American.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• The Century Begins: The Rays That Never Were
• Mind Numbers: The Curious Theory of the Intelligence Quotient
• Dreaming Up Theories: The Unconscious Con of Sigmund Freud
• Surfing the Cosmos: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
• The Apprentice Builds a Brain: Misled by Metaphors
• Genie in a Jar: The "Discovery" of Cold Fusion
• Biosphere 2 Springs a Leak
• For Whom the Bell Curves: The Racial Theories of J. Phillipe Rushton
• Further Reading
• Acknowledgments
• Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

From sorcerers and apprentices to physicists Fleishmann and Pons, Dewdney (200% of Nothing) takes the reader on a fast-paced romp through some of the most prominent cases of "bad science" to surface this century. These aren't cases of fraudulent attempts to garner fame but instances in which the main players often failed to follow the basic tenets of "good science," namely, experimentation and publication of results for others to verify. In each case, Dewdney takes pains to point out flaws in reasoning or the failure to state a clear hypothesis or to check for reproducibility. An underlying eagerness to be the first to announce some startling discovery is seen time and again. He doesn't overlook the role of the mass media, either. Who can forget the stampede to report the debacle from Utah surrounding cold fusion, the veritable genie in a bottle? This notorious case, as well as seven others (including Freud's development of his theory of the mind and of psychoanalysis) illustrate nicely the need for reality checks every now and then. The all-too-human side of research is seen in the sad case of turn-of-the-century French scientist René Blondlot and his so-called N-rays, which, after much ballyhoo, where shown not to exist. Written with wit and a touch of pathos‘and sure to please science lovers‘the book is guaranteed to generate a degree of cynicism when the next major scientific breakthrough is announced in the press. A selection of additional reading suggestions is a welcome bonus, particularly for some of the more controversial cases. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

YA‘Eight entertaining vignettes that illustrate how science can go awry when researchers become convinced of the truth before all the results are in and the analysis completed. Examples come from 20th-century research in a variety of areas including biology, physics, astronomy, psychology, and sociology. Case studies include the 1989 announcement by two scientists that they had achieved cold fusion in a simple contraption and the highly touted, but flawed, Biosphere. The book is easy reading even for those with no technical background. The sections can be read at random, and there's enough continuity for readers to place each segment into the context of the larger theme.‘Greg Matthes, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Dewdney, author of the popular lampoon of statistical misinformation 200% of Nothing (CH, Jan'94), extends his barbs to episodes of bad empirical science. Blondet's nonexistent "N-Rays," the spurious "I.Q.," and the ill-conceived projects of Freud, Biosphere 2, SETI, cold fusion, racial classification, and neural nets are charmingly presented as bogus or inept adventures in what Popper called "pseudo-science." Dewdney includes Popper's criterion of falsifiability in a list of methodological desiderata that presumably would have avoided or invalidated these blunders. That list includes the rest of the neopositivist hypothetico-deductive method, including requiring repeatable experiments (violated in the cases of cold fusion and N-rays), hypothesis formation and testing (violated by Freud, Drake, etc.), and logical consistency (absent in racial classification schemes). As the corrective philosophy thus presented is hopelessly naive, and the histories are adumbrated accordingly, the academic utility of this book is minimal, but the commonsense journalistic approach makes this a very attractive initiator for undergraduate consideration of the problems of "demarcation criteria" (between science and pseudoscience and between bad and good science) that provoked the antirealist philosophies of the last generation. Recommended for all general science collections. General readers; undergraduates. P. D. Skiff; Bard College

Booklist Review

A witty look at scientific goofs, blunders, and fiascoes--from N-rays to cold fusion to the biosphere.

Kirkus Book Review

Why do good scientists fall into error? Here are eight case studies, analyzed with entertaining irreverence by a former Scientific American columnist. Dewdney (The Planiverse, 1984) notes that scientific advance consists of two parts: getting an idea and testing it. The public image of scientists tends to focus on the flash of inspiration- -Archimedes in his bathtub or Newton with the falling apple--but without the unspectacular process of designing and carrying out experiments and measurements, even the most brilliant idea cannot aspire to the name of science. Spectacular scientific blunders-- such as cold fusion or the ``N-rays'' announced early in this century by the French scientist René Blondlot--usually arise from flawed or inadequate experiments. Often the source of such error is plain old wishful thinking; Fleishmann and Pons, the ``discoverers'' of cold fusion, afraid of being beaten to one of the greatest possible discoveries of all time, rushed to announce their results without adequately checking them. Blondlot wanted to see French science match the recent triumphs of the Germans and persuaded himself that he had found a new kind of energy. When cooler heads investigated the alleged phenomenon, it evaporated. Dewdney saves a large measure of scorn for psychology, singling out Freud's career as a prime example of pseudoscience. For this author, Freud's half-dozen published case studies appear too weak and inconclusive to support the elaborate theoretical structure he erected upon them. Likewise, the measurement of intelligence has long been suspect; what IQ tests measure is often the product of the cultural bias of those administering the tests. Dewdney goes to particular pains to discredit attempts to tie IQ scores to racial background, pointing out that differences within a given group far surpass alleged differences between groups. Dewdney manages to make this catalog of error entertaining as well as instructive; good medicine for both skeptics and true believers.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Recreations, his column which appeared in Scientific American for more than eight years. He has been an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Western Ontario in Canada since 1968, and is president of Turing Omnibus, Inc. Among his many books on computer science, science and mathematics are Two Hundred Percent of Nothing (1993), an effort to expose abuses of math and statistics in everyday life and its companion work, Yes, We Have No Neutrons (1997).

Dewdney is also interested in growing and distributing rare native trees, as manifested in his book, Hungry Hollow: The Story of a Natural Place (1998). Hungry Hollow examines the elements of a natural habitat in both time and space.

(Bowker Author Biography)