Fabulous Science
Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP Oxford
- Date of Publication 25 March 2004
- ISBN 9780198609391
- Binding Paperback
- No. of pages320 pages
- Size 197x129x17 mm
- Weight 359 g
- Language English
- Illustrations numerous halftones 0
Categories
Short description:
The great biologist Louis Pasteur suppressed data that didn't support the case he was making. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity was only 'confirmed' in 1919 because an eminent British scientist massaged his figures. Joseph Lister's famously spotless hospital wards were actually notoriously dirty. Gregor Mendel, supposed father of the science of heredity, never grasped the fundamental principles of 'Mendelian' genetics. Often startling, always enthralling, Fabulous Science reveals the truth behind these and many other myths in the history of science.
MoreLong description:
The great biologist Louis Pasteur suppressed 'awkward' data because it didn't support the case he was making. John Snow, the 'first epidemiologist' was doing nothing others had not done before. Gregor Mendel, the supposed 'founder of genetics' never grasped the fundamental principles of 'Mendelian' genetics. Joseph Lister's famously clean hospital wards were actually notorious dirty. And Einstein's general relativity was only 'confirmed' in 1919 because an eminent British scientist cooked his figures. These are just some of the revelations explored in this book.
Drawing on current history of science scholarship, Fabulous Science shows that many of our greatest heroes of science were less than honest about their experimental data and not above using friends in high places to help get their ideas accepted. It also reveals that the alleged revolutionaries of the history of science were often nothing of the sort. Prodigiously able they may have been, but the epithet of the 'man before his time' usually obscures vital contributions made their unsung contemporaries and the intrinsic merits of ideas they overturned. These distortions of the historical record mostly arise from our tendency to read the present back into the past. But in many cases, scientists owe their immortality to a combination of astonishing effrontery and their skills as self-promoters.
Review from previous edition Waller writes with clarity and flair . . . [he] has a real talent for telling a story.
Table of Contents:
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: what is history for?
Part 1: Right for the wrong reasons
The pasteurization of spontaneous generation
'The battle over the electron'
The eclipse of Isaac Newton: Arthur Eddington's 'proof' of general relativity
Very unscientific management
The Hawthorne studies: finding what you are looking for
Conclusion to Part 1: sins against science?
Part 2: Telling science as it was
Myth in the time of cholera
'The priest who held the key': Gregor Mendel and the ratios of fact and fiction
Was Joseph Lister Mr Clean?
The Origin of Species by means of use-inheritance
'A is for ape, B is for Bible': science, religion, and melodrama
Painting yourself into a corner: Charles Best and the discovery of insulin
Alexander Fleming's dirty dishes
'A decoy of Satan'
Conclusion to Part 2: sins against history?
Notes on sources
Index
