Voodoo science Book

This highly readable book is an excellent discussion of how the lack of scientific literacy in America affects all of us.

Physicist Robert Park begins this wide survey of bad science with a discussion of how the media is helping to confuse Americans by regularly covering stories of exciting, but highly improbable, scientific claims. In a detailed discussion of the cold fusion disaster of 1989, he then goes on to look at basic human nature and how wishful thinking on the part of a scientist can lead from self-delusion to fraud with remarkable speed.

Though Park discusses some of the usual suspects such as homeopathy, astrology, and Deepak Chopra's quantum stretches, he also spends a lot of time looking at more conventional scientific issues such as the manned space program. Park eloquently explains how politics, national pride and emotion have contributed to the wasting billions of dollars on a program that is'from a scientific standpoint'totally not worth it.

The chapter that I enjoyed the most is the one in which Park did a detailed breakdown of the EMF scare that began when a seriously flawed study showed a correlation between rates of childhood leukemia and the proximity of power lines. Park explains how that one flawed study, combined with an overzealous reporter trying to sell books, kept that fear alive for decades, causing great suffering to both parents and those with houses near suspect power lines, not to mention the diversion of enormous amounts of money to numerous follow up studies that ultimately showed that there was absolutely no connection.

Despite the findings of solid science on the EMF-cancer connection, the fear may well have been kept alive by hungry lawyers looking for the next big tort payday had it not been for some positive developments in how the courts relate to matters of science. Strong precedent has now been set requiring any science testimony admitted to an argument to be based on sound, accepted principles and not simply on some fringe scientists' willingness to say that anything might cause cancer in exchange for a paycheck.

Despite this very positive step, Park's book makes it clear that the public's lack of basic scientific literacy allows people to be exploited and manipulated in unacceptable ways. Though parts of the book go into more scientific detail than I generally find interesting, Park's argument is so compelling I made a point of re-reading these sections, making sure I understood them, so that I hopefully will no longer be part of the problem.