Bad Science: A Brief History of Bizarre Misconceptions, Totally Wrong Conclusions, and Incredibly Stupid Theories

274 Pages·2011·2.3 MB·English

by  Linda Zimmermann

A Brief History
of
Bizarre Misconceptions,
Totally Wrong Conclusions
and
Incredibly Stupid Theories
Eagle Press
New York
For more information, or to contact the author, go to:
www.badsciences.com
Or write to:
Linda Zimmermann
P.O. Box192
Blooming Grove, NY 10914
Bad Science
Copyright © 2011 Linda Zimmermann
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without
permission.
ISBN: 978-0-9799002-4-2
CONTENTS
Medicine 10

A Shocking Experience 10
Animal Magnetism 13
Where’s your Sense of Humour? 15
The Royal Touch 17
Getting Your Head Read 19
William Harvey 22
Keep them From Harm… 26
Bad Blood 29
Lying About Your Age 33
The Pen is Mightier than the Scalpel 35
When Good Scientists Go Bad 36
A Hole in One 38
Human Guinea Pigs 41
Fun with Radium and X-Rays 43
Chemistry and Pharmaceuticals 46

The Sears Catalog Did Have Everything 46
Legal Poison 48
Defective Testing 51
Nobel Prize for Death and Destruction 53
You Are What You Eat? 55
One Bad Apple 57
Dephlogistocation 59
Who Needs Scientists and Chemists, Anyway? 61
Birth, Contraception,and Sex 63

It’s The Thought That Counts 63
The Birth of an Anesthetic 64
Burning Curiosity 65
Clamping Down on a Family Secret 66
Take Two Aspirin and Get Burned at the Stake 68
Breeding Like a Rabbit 69
Inconceivable Conception 72
Back in the Saddle Again 75
Childbed Fever 78
A Stitch in Time 82
Rule of 120 85
Egyptian Dick and Jane An Ancient Tale of Contraception 86
Dentistry 88

The Evil Tooth Worm 88
Paying with your Teeth 90
Rub Them Out 92
Hush, Little Baby 93
Washing your Mouth Out with What? 95
Geology, Paleontology, Archaeology (and other things found in dirt) 98

Stone Blind 98
Skeletons in the closet 102
The Cardiff Giant 105
Another Giant Hoax 108
Piltdown Man 110
Missing the Link 113
Divine Hands 116
The Thirst for Gold 119
Catch My Drift? 123
Be Careful What You Ask For 126
The Miracle Mineral 127
Astronomy & the Space Program 132

Just in Time for Dinner 132
A Slight Miscalculation 133
Not So Happy Hour 134
Counter-Intelligence 135
The More The Merrier 137
Job Security 139
Too Much of a Bad Thing 140
Music To His Spheres 143
It Takes an Upstart… 146
Hitting Bottom 147
A High Stake Gamble 149
A Banner’s Day 150
To See, Or Not to See… 152
Insult and Injury 155
They Didn’t Call Them Dark For Nothing 157
Can’t Make Them Think 159
Six and Six Equal Nothing 161
Rising Above The Occasion 162
Send in the Clowns 163
Locke, Stock, and Barrel 165
Castles in the Sky 167
As The Planets Turn 168
Can't Argue With Success 170
Blood, Sweat, and Fears 172
You Think Your Job Is Tough? 173
Eclipsing Reason 174
Now You See It, Now You Don’t 176
Aiming To Please 178
Et Tu, Augustus? 180
Good Comet, Bad Comet 181
In The Eyes of the Beholder 183
It’s the “Thought Balls” that Count 184
All Dressed Up and Look Out Below! 186
Divine Protection? 189
Hot Rocks 190
Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind 191
Another Nutty Professor? 193
One of the Few Times Bigger Isn’t Better 195
Bad Archaeoastronomy 196
Friar Fire 197
Is Anybody Home? 199
Put Up and Shut Up 200
Martians Are Easy 201
Fine Line 202
Lunar Roving 205
Broken-down Chariots 206
Not Worth the Ink 208
Let’s Face It 209
Star War? 212
Deep Disturbance 214
It Doesn’t Take a Rocket Scientist… 215
Have You Ever Been Plutoed? 217
Hubble, Hubble, Toil and Trouble 219
In Conclusion: The Mother of All Bad Space Travel (or Lack Thereof) 220
Scientists, Heredity, DNA, Firearms, and Everything Else that didn’t Fit into Previous
Categories 224

Spontaneous Generation 224
Pasteur 226
Shooting Your Mouth Off 228
William Charlton 232
Perpetual Fraud 233
Was it Dominant or Recessive Fraud? 236
Hereditary Nonsense 238
Getting the Cold Shoulder 242
Taking Out the Garbage? 245
The Unkindest Cut of All 248
Breathtaking Inanity 250
Author’s Note

I love science.
Although I didn’t realize it at the time, in retrospect I freely admit I was
a science geek when I was a kid. I charted sunspots, collected bugs, built models
of spacecraft, mixed household chemicals and cleaning products to see how they
would react, took things apart to see how they worked, and enthusiastically tried
to learn everything I could.
Even though I also loved to write and knew someday I would give it a
shot, there was never any question that I would first pursue a career in science.
While in college, I got a part-time job working in the Quality Control
microbiology lab of a medical diagnostics company. I moved over to chemistry
QC, and after graduation, became a full-time employee in the Research and
Development department.
I wore the requisite white lab coat, the nerdy safety glasses and safety
shoes, and was completely enamored of all the glassware, chemicals, and
instrumentation. What I didn’t like was the company politics, the sales and
marketing people who were treated like demigods (while the scientists who
created the products they sold were clearly second-class citizens), and the
arrogance and outright dishonesty of some of the scientists who felt that higher
degrees were something akin to being members of the aristocracy.
The writer in me stirred. These people were sullying the purity of
science, and I became rather miffed. In response, I wrote a satirical newsletter
called the Narwhal Gazette (it’s a long story), and lampooned the company’s
people, policies, and projects. To my astonishment, I didn’t get fired! In fact,
everyone—including the bosses and stuffy scientists—loved it, and people began
lining up at the copier to get the latest issue “hot off the presses.” People actually
wanted to be written about, and I was emboldened to be even more outrageous
and daring in my satire.
The Gazette flourished for many years, until new management came in.
They were not amused. I had two options—stop writing the Gazette, or continue
with the agreement that all my articles would be approved and edited by
management. Inflamed with righteous indignation, there was no question that I
would sooner stand before a firing squad, before I would submit to state-
sanctioned censorship, so the farewell issue of the Gazette signaled the end to
my humorous barbs aimed at the world of science.
Or so I thought.
When the company eliminated the R&D department, I didn’t seek out
another job in a lab. The magnetic pull of writing took hold and I began working
on short stories, novels, history articles and books, and articles on astronomy. I
also started lecturing on astronomy, and came upon the idea for a humorous
program about the history of all the crazy things that were once believed. One
thing led to another, and in 1995, I published the book Bad Astronomy: A Brief
History of Bizarre Misconceptions, Totally Wrong Conclusions, and Incredibly
Stupid Theories.
I gave presentations on Bad Astronomy at “Star Parties” and astronomy
conventions from New England to Florida, and enjoyed every minute of it. There
was the occasional audience member who thought I was being too critical of
those throughout history who had committed acts of Bad Astronomy, but the
overwhelming majority of people just laughed and had a good time.
I went on to many other writing projects over the years, but all the while
kept my eyes open for similar examples in other fields of science, and added
those stories to a folder I marked “Bad Science.” I knew some day another book
would emerge from that overstuffed folder, and that day came in 2010, when the
magnetic pull of science—and memories of the Gazette—signaled that the time
had come.
As much as I enjoy writing on a wide variety of topics, plunging
headlong into Bad Science was a wonderful revelation. This is who I was—the
geeky science kid, grown up into the wisecracking author/lecturer, with an
irresistible urge to smite the foes of Good Science. It was a project I never
wanted to end, but as sad as I was to complete the manuscript, I was overjoyed at
the prospect of sharing my irreverent views with readers and audiences again.
So, where do I stand on what constitutes Bad Science? For starters, the
short answer would be torturing someone like Galileo for his heliocentric
theories. Then there are those who commit fraud or harm people because of
greed and ego. There’s also the ever-popular ignoring the obvious to perpetuate
one’s own agenda, and refusing to evaluate the merits of the facts because of
personal and religious beliefs.
On this last point, I need to make special mention. When it comes to
personal beliefs, I am fully aware that my way of thinking isn’t exactly in the
mainstream, and I believe in some things that others would consider completely
absurd, weird, and unscientific. But at least I know they are unscientific, and
always try to maintain a separation between personal beliefs and science.
But enough of all this. The purpose of this book is to amuse you, the
reader, and if you learn something along the way, so much the better. Judge for
yourself the merits of each case presented here. And if you happen to work in a
lab, hospital, or research facility, keep your eyes and ears open—for Bad Science
is always lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike!

Linda Zimmermann
January 2011