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This tour of the scientific frontier makes a strong case that the alternative science of today will be the hard science of the future.
List of contents
Alternative Science Challenging the Myths of the Scientific Establishment Part One: Science 1. Too wonderful to be True
2. A Completely Idiotic Idea
3. Sunbeams from Cucumbers
4. The Gates of Unreason
5. Animal Magnetism
6. A Case of Ill Treatment
7. Forbidden Fields
Part Two: Taboo 8. Calling a Spade a Spade
9. The Research Game
10. Guardians of the Gate
11. A trout in the Milk
12. Too Insensitive to Conform
13. The Future that Failed
14. A Methodical Madness
Postscript
15. Frauds, Fakes, and Facing Facts
Notes
Bibliography
Subject Index
People Index
About the author
Richard Milton is a journalist working in Britain who has written widely on science and technology. He is also the author of
Shattering the Myths of Darwinism.
Summary
In this compelling tour through the world of anomalous research, Richard Milton makes clear what the scientific establishment takes pains to deny: plenty of hard experimental evidence already exists for such things as cold fusion, paranormal phenomena, bioenergy, and the effectiveness of alternative medicine. Because these subjects and those who dare to investigate them are continually denied legitimacy by what can only be called the "paradigm police," the public is led to believe that all claims made about such topics are completely groundless. With humor and an eye for the telling detail, the author describes many instances when the defenders of scientific orthodoxy acted with unscientific rigidity in the face of the evidence. Faraday, Roentgen, Edison, and even the Wright Brothers were thought to be charlatans by their contemporaries. Taking the broad view of the way science is done, Milton discusses the forces at work in the marginalization of unorthodox research, and makes the reader wonder if there is not something fundamentally wrong with the way that science is currently being practiced.
Additional text
". . . explains how much our scientific culture has become a self-serving law unto itself. It wields words like reason and rationality as added weapons to impose its will, often without serious reference to the world in which we all must live."
