Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science

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Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, Martin Gardner's second book, is an early classic and foundational text of the movement for scientific skepticism. It contains a fairly comprehensive survey of crank beliefs as they existed in the 1950s. The book was first published in 1952 as In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present.

In the preface to the second edition, published in 1957, Gardner wrote:

“”The first edition of this book prompted many curious letters from irate readers. The most violent letters came from Reichians, furious because the book considered Orgonomy alongside such (to them) outlandish cults as dianetics. Dianeticians, of course, felt the same about orgonomy. I heard from homeopaths who were insulted to find themselves in company with such frauds as osteopathy and chiropractic, and one chiropractor in Kentucky "pitied" me because I had turned my spine on God's greatest gift to suffering humanity. Several admirers of Dr. Bates favored me with letters so badly typed that I suspect the writers were in urgent need of strong spectacles. Oddly enough, most of these correspondents objected to one chapter only, thinking all the others excellent.

This must have been before the rise of crank magnetism.

Contents

As per the subtitle of the book, "The curious theories of modern pseudoscientist and the strange, amusing and alarming cults that surround them" are discussed in the chapters as listed.

1. In the Name of Science, an introductory chapter
2. Flat and Hollow
   • the Flat Earth theory of Wilbur Glenn Voliva
   • the Hollow Earth theories of John Cleves Symmes, Jr. and Cyrus Reed Teed
3. Monsters of Doom
   • Immanuel Velikovsky’s Worlds in Collision
   • William Whiston’s A New Theory of the Earth
   • Ignatius Donnelly’s Ragnarok; Hanns Hörbiger’s Welteislehre and Hörbiger’s disciple Hans Schindler Bellamy.
4. The Forteans
   • Charles Fort, Tiffany Thayer and the Fortean Society
   • The Hutchins-Adler Great Books Movement: "most of them regard scientists, on the whole, as a stupid lot."
5. Flying Saucers
   • Kenneth Arnold, the Mantell UFO Incident
   • Raymond Palmer, Richard Shaver, Donald Keyhoe, Frank Scully, Gerald Heard and the Unidentified flying object movement
6. Zig-Zag-and-Swirl
   • Alfred Lawson and his “Lawsonomy”
7. Down with Einstein!
   • Joseph Battell, Thomas H. Graydon, George Francis Gillette, Jeremiah J. Callahan and others.
8. Sir Isaac Babson
   • Roger Babson and the Gravity Research Foundation
9. Dowsing Rods and Doodlebugs
   • Solcol W. Tromp and radiesthesia
   • Kenneth Roberts, Henry Gross and their dowsing
10. Under the Microscope
    • Andrew Crosse, Henry Charlton Bastian Charles Wentworth Littlefield and others who observed spontaneous generation of living forms
11. Geology versus Genesis
    • Philip Henry Gosse and his Omphalos
    • George McCready Price and The New Geology
    • Mortimer Adler’s writings on evolution
    • Hilaire Belloc’s debate with H. G. Wells
12. Lysenkoism
    • Lamarck and Lamarckism; Lysenko and Lysenkoism
13. Apologists for Hate
    • Hans F. K. Günther and “nordicism”
    • Charles Carroll, Madison Grant, Lothrop Stoddard, and “scientific racism”
14. Atlantis and Lemuria
    • Ignatius Donnelly (again), Lewis Spence and Atlantis
    • Madame Blavatsky, James Churchward and Lemuria
15. The Great Pyramid
    • John Taylor, Charles Piazzi Smyth, Charles Taze Russell and others with their theories about the Great Pyramid of Giza
16. Medical Cults
    • Samuel Hahnemann, The Organon of the Healing Art, and homeopathy
    • Naturopathy, with iridiagnosis, zone therapy and Alexander technique
    • Andrew Taylor Still and osteopathy
    • Daniel D. Palmer and chiropractic
17. Medical Quacks
    • Elisha Perkins
    • Albert Abrams and his defender Upton Sinclair
    • Ruth Drown
    • Dinshah Pestanji Framji Ghadiali
    • Color therapy
    • Gurdjieff
    • Aleister Crowley
    • Edgar Cayce
    • (in the Appendix) Hoxsey Therapy and Krebiozen
18. Food Faddists
    • Horace Fletcher and Fletcherism
    • William Howard Hay and the Dr. Hay diet
    • Vegetarianism (“We need not be concerned here with the ethical arguments …”)
    • Jerome Irving Rodale and organic farming
    • Rudolf Steiner, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, anthroposophy and biodynamic agriculture
    • Gayelord Hauser
    • Nutrilite
    • Dudley J. LeBlanc and Hadacol
19. Throw Away Your Glasses!
    • William Horatio Bates, the Bates method, Aldous Huxley, The Art of Seeing
20. Eccentric Sexual Theories
    • Arabella Kenealy
    • Bernarr Macfadden
    • John R. Brinkley
    • Frank Harris
    • John Humphrey Noyes and the Oneida Community
    • Alice Bunker Stockham and “karezza”
21. Orgonomy
    • Wilhelm Reich and “orgone”
22. Dianetics
    • L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. (The term Scientology had only just been introduced when Gardner’s book was published.)
23. General Semantics, Etc.
    • Alfred Korzybski, Samuel I. Hayakawa and “general semantics”
    • Jacob L. Moreno and “psychodrama”
24. From Bumps to Handwriting
    • Francis Joseph Gall and phrenology
    • Physiognomy; palmistry: graphology
25. ESP and PK
    • Joseph Banks Rhine, extra-sensory perception and psychokinesis
    • Nandor Fodor
    • Upton Sinclair (again) and Mental Radio
    • Max Freedom Long
26. Bridey Murphy and Other Matters
    • Morey Bernstein and Bridey Murphy
    • a final plea for orthodoxy and responsibility in publishing.

External links

• Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science at Dover Publications