Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific DiscoveryOxford University Press, 2004 - 308 pages 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 |
Contents
THE PASTEURIZATION OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION | 15 |
THE BATTLE OVER THE ELECTRON | 33 |
THE ECLIPSE OF ISAAC NEWTON Arthur Eddingtons proof of general relativity | 49 |
VERY UNSCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT | 65 |
THE HAWTHORNE STUDIES Finding what you are looking for | 79 |
Sins against science? | 99 |
TELLING SCIENCE AS IT WAS | 109 |
MYTH IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA | 115 |
THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF USEINHERITANCE | 177 |
A is FOR APE B is FOR BIBLE Science religion and melodrama | 205 |
PAINTING YOURSELF INTO A CORNER Charles Best and the discovery of insulin | 223 |
ALEXANDER FLEMINGS DIRTY DISHES | 247 |
A DECOY OF SATAN | 269 |
Sins against history? | 284 |
NOTES ON SOURCES | 296 |
302 | |
THE PRIEST WHO HELD THE KEY Gregor Mendel and the ratios of fact and fiction | 133 |
WAS JOSEPH LISTER MR CLEAN? | 161 |
Other editions - View all
Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery John Waller Limited preview - 2004 |
Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery John Waller Limited preview - 2004 |
Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery John Waller No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
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