Since the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the reputation of science in the United States has risen like an atomic cloud.More students than ever before are choosing a science as their life's career in colleges and universities.The military budget for scientific research is unprecedentedly large.Books and periodicals devoted to science have been published in greater numbers than at any time in history.Even in recreational literature, science fiction has a tendency to replace detective stories. Science is thriving at the moment, but with a strange consequence: a new breed of "scientific" theories has emerged.This kind of person is famous, so to speak, in the light of those famous scientists.Those scientists naturally dismissed such people.They are preoccupied with bigger problems.But people with lesser knowledge who are fascinated by sensational discoveries and panaceas to cure diseases often become the shouting and ardent followers of such characters.

In 1951, tens of thousands of mentally ill people all over the United States entered into "ideal dreams".In this dream, they go back in time along their "time track", trying to recall some unpleasant experiences they had in the fetus.Tens of thousands of neurotic patients with complex conditions regard mind therapy as the secret recipe of quack medicine, and they are sitting in the "life energy box" to increase the "life energy" in their bodies.There are countless middle-aged housewives who are planning to eat a food rich in yogurt, wheat malt and brown sugar paste, hoping to live to be a hundred years old.

Pseudoscientists are not only active in the field of spiritual and physical therapy.It was thought that the original interpretation of the miracle stories in the Old Testament had fallen out of fashion with the death of William Jennings Bryan.However, this interpretation is now in vogue again.Didn't the eminent "astrophysicist" Dr. Emmanuel Velikovsky already point out the fact that at the very moment Joshua ordered the sun and moon to stop, the earth also stopped turning ? For 50 years, geologists and physicists have been working together to perfect the complex and sophisticated instruments for detecting the structure of the earth.But, according to renowned novelist Kenneth Roberts, they're wasting their time.All it takes is a forked twig, and he's plausibly written a polemical book to prove it.

Since the first reports of flying saucers in 1947, countless people have been convinced that the earth is under the prying eyes of visitors from another planet.Admirers of Frank Sculley's "Behind UFOs" argue that the mysterious saucers are piloted by Venusian inhabitants who are exactly like people on Earth, except they're only 3 feet tall .A recently published monograph by Gerald Hurd puts forward a stronger case for thinking that these flying saucers were piloted by intelligent bees on Mars. In the 1920s, newspapers widely circulated the speculations of paranoid scholars.Every Sunday, the Hearst department's U.S. Weekly published a lurid sci-fi novel.The daily newspapers are full of unconfirmed reports about the discovery of giant sea snakes, the discovery of live frogs in the foundation stones of ancient buildings, or the use of golden teeth inlaid to listen to them. It's on the radio.However, during the ensuing 20 years, an unwritten code of scientific ethics gradually developed in the press, with news agencies hiring competent science writers; major dailies in major cities employing trained science editors; A campaign was gradually developed against the promotion of medical deceit by the press, and against the publication by members of our Society of studies which had not been adequately examined by their peers.Today, in the scientific reports of American newspapers and magazines, there are far fewer nonsense and rumors than in the past.

The companies that publish magazines and books have largely contributed to the formation of this voluntary code.Unfortunately, after the 1940s, these publishing companies began to regress. Astonishing Science Fantasy, always the best science fiction magazine, was the first to report to the public the great "idea revolution" in psychiatry. Fact magazine's circulation was greatly increased by publishing the news that the flying saucer was from another planet. Harper's led the way with an article extolling Velikovsky's extraordinary discovery, and Collier and Reader's Digest followed suit with similar articles. The Saturday Evening Post and the Observer trumpeted Guy Lord Houser's brown sugar paste cult in the same month that the FDA acquired several copies of his bestseller, Looking Young, Live Long".The government agency charged that, because of the book's sorcery, placing it next to jars selling brown sugar paste would constitute "bragging" about the product.

Many big publishers couldn't find a better outlet than this.Admittedly, the manuscript of Ronald Hubbard's "Mind Talk" was too absurd, and some of the larger publishing companies were not interested in it.However, Velikovsky's equally absurd work found two very famous and big publishers.Kenneth Roberts's book on water-seeking with a magic wand, Sculley's book on flying saucers, and Heard's more whimsical treatises were all published by major publishers. When editors and publishers of books are put to legal questions on all these questions, their answer is readily available: America is a free country.If the public is willing to buy a certain kind of book in large quantities, do they not, as public servants, have a right, or even a duty, to satisfy this demand?

Nobody with a modicum of respect for independent thinking would expect publishing companies and journals to be under any form of government compulsion to publish only material approved by powerful scientific institutions.However, the problem is not here.The question is whether the spontaneous moral code that has been painstakingly established over the past 20 years is worth maintaining.For example, Velikovsky's work was widely publicized as a revolutionary discovery in astronomy.Granted, the publisher has every legal right to publish such a book.By the same token, some scientists have threatened to boycott the textbooks that the publishing company publishes unless it removes Velikovsky's work from its catalog.These scientists are also exercising their democratic rights to organize protests.This is not a legal issue, or even a political issue.This is a matter of personal responsibility.

Maybe we're making a fuss out of a molehill.Some would say that it would be interesting to publish some books about the Martian beemen to stimulate the public's imagination.Scientists are not fooled, and neither are readers with scientific knowledge.What does it matter if someone is willing to shell out their pockets for this kind of crap?The answer is that it is not at all fun when people are led astray by grandstanding scientific claims.Thousands of mentally ill, desperate for the care of trained psychiatrists, indulge in superstitious remedies that seriously delay treatment.There have been alarming numbers of suicides or insanity among patients who have received this dubious therapy.A reputable publisher would never consider publishing a work on cancer therapy written by a man widely regarded by his peers as a charlatan.However, there is not much difference between this type of book and "Theory of Mind".

What was the lasting effect of non-medical books like Velikovsky's and his monographs on flying saucers?It's hard to see anything other than harmful effects.Who can tell how many orthodox Christians and Jews who read Worlds on Collision regress back to believing in biblical science after hearing that science has confirmed the miracles of the Old Testament What about those original explanations?Mencken once wrote that if you threw an egg through a train window anywhere in America, you would hit a fundamentalist.This was the case 25 years ago, times have changed, but it is easy to forget how far away the battle against religious superstition is to be won.In many southern states of the United States, tens of thousands of high school biology teachers are still afraid of teaching evolution because they are afraid of losing their jobs.When the late Fulton Oursler in Reader's Digest enthusiastically hailed Velikovsky's work as scientifically substantiated for the most deplorable interpretation of the Bible, informed and enlightened Christians, whether Catholics and Protestants alike were undoubtedly hit hard.

What about flying saucers?I have heard many readers of UFO books blame the government in no uncertain terms for their stubborn refusal to reveal the "truth" about these elusive platters.The government's "policy of secrecy" has been angrily pointed to as evidence that our country's military and political leaders have completely lost faith in the wisdom of the American people. An even more regrettable effect of publishing such nonsense in science is that they confuse in the minds of gullible readers what is and is not scientific knowledge. boundaries.The more confused the public mind is, the easier it is to fall prey to pseudoscientific theories that may one day be supported by powerful political groups.As we will see in later chapters, the renaissance of quasiscience in Germany coincided with the rise of Hitler.If the German people had been better trained in distinguishing between good and bad science, would they have so easily fallen for the insane racial theories preached by Nazi anthropologists?

Ultimately, the best way to combat the spread of pseudoscience is to empower the public with the knowledge to distinguish the writings of reputable scientists from the writings of self-defeating ignorance.This is not as difficult to do as one might imagine.Of course, there will always be some ambiguous situations that are difficult to distinguish.But the fact that black gradually becomes white through many degrees of gray does not mean that it is difficult to distinguish between black and white. Actually, this involves two different "continuums".One is a measure of how well a scientific theory is supported by evidence.At one end of the scale are affirmatively false theories like ideation; a one-day-old embryo can reliably record his mother's conversations.In the middle of this scale are some developing theories, that is, hypotheses that can be justified, but due to lack of sufficient data, they are easily controversial, such as the expansion of the universe.Finally, at the other end of the scale are theories that are almost certainly true, such as the belief that the Earth is round or that humans and beasts are distant relatives.Determining how well a theory is proven is an extremely difficult problem and requires specialized knowledge.In fact, there is no ready-made method to assign an exact "probability value" to an assumption.Questions of this kind need not bother us, however.For, with few exceptions, we are only discussing theories that come very close to being "almost certainly wrong".There is no doubt that they are useless. The second continuum is the measure of scientist qualifications.It too has two extremes, from the obviously admirable scientist to the equally obviously unworthy scientist.There are those whose status is debatable: there are those whose theories are sane or not.Some people qualify as scientists in one respect and not in others.Some people, at one point in their life, can be called scientists, at others not, and so on.All of this should not blind us to the obvious fact that there is a sort of self-appointed scientist who can rightfully be called a paranoid.So he is called paranoid, not because his ideas are novel, nor because his research is motivated by a neurotic.The basis is the technical standard used to evaluate the theory.A man who insists on making views, all contradicted by some useful evidence, which does not have some plausible grounds for serious consideration, is duly dubbed paranoid by his colleagues. mad. Paranoids are very different in both knowledge and intelligence.Some are ignorant, almost illiterate, and their activities are only to send "strange letters" to some outstanding scientists.Others produced shoddy pamphlets, usually self-published by the authors, with long titles and a photo of the author printed on the cover.Still others are brilliant, well educated, and often profound in the sciences they study.Their works can be confused with those articles that are really brilliant and insightful.However, despite these differences, most pseudoscientists have some common characteristics. The first and most important of these features is that these paranoiacs conduct their research in almost total isolation from their colleagues.This does not refer to geographical isolation, but to lack of productive contacts with researchers in the profession.Such isolation was not necessarily a sign of paranoia during the Renaissance.Science is not well organized.There were neither scientific journals nor societies.It is also difficult to exchange information between researchers in the same field.What's more, society often puts enormous pressure on such communication.In the typical case of Galileo, the Inquisition forced him into isolation because the church felt that his views violated religious belief.Even in Darwin's recent time, the pressure of religious conservatism was so great that Darwin and his few supporters were almost isolated when they opposed the views of the more respected biologists. status. Today, this social situation no longer exists.The struggle of science to free itself from religious domination has been almost completely won.Church groups still oppose certain theories of biology and psychology, but this opposition no longer dominates the scientific community or the press.Each of the sciences has established effective communication networks.The extensive co-operation to test new theories is persevering.This inspection process is not controlled by the "orthodoxy" above.In this modern structure, the progress of science depends on the continuous exchange of data, so it is impossible for an accomplished scientist to work behind closed doors. Modern paranoia insists that such behind-the-scenes work is not done on purpose.This, he claimed, was due to the bias of the established scientific community against new ideas.This statement is absolutely absurd.Today, the scientific journals are full of outlandish theories.The shortest way to fame is often to overthrow people's unshakable beliefs.Einstein's work on relativity is a prominent example.Although this achievement was initially met with considerable opposition, it was on the whole an intellectual one.With a handful of exceptions, none of the eminent opponents of Einstein dismissed him as a whimsical lunatic.They didn't disparage him because he had published brilliant articles in journals over the years and was recognized as a theoretical physicist.In an extremely brief period, his theory of relativity has won almost universal acceptance, and one of the greatest revolutions in the history of science has quietly occurred. History is also full of new scientific insights that have met with tragic results.Of course, it would be foolish to deny these instances.These new insights, which were not given a fair chance to be stated, turned out to be correct.Pseudoscientists never tire of bringing these examples to their readers.Conventional psychology's opposition to the study of the phenomenon of hypnosis (encouraged by the fact that Messmer was both a paranoid and a quack) is a prominent example.In medicine, the well-known examples of Pasteur's theory of sterilization, the use of anesthetics, and Dr. Semmelweis's insistence that doctors should disinfect their hands before delivering babies, all illustrate that some doctrines have encountered strong prejudices from their colleagues. Perhaps the most notable example of scientific intransigence is the refusal of eighteenth-century astronomers to believe that meteorites actually fell from the sky.So strong was the sentiment against medieval superstitions and wild tales that whenever a meteorite fell, astronomers insisted that it was picked up somewhere or blown by the wind, or that it was one of those Claims of eyewitnesses are lying.Even the great French Academy of Sciences scoffed at this folklore, although it had done some research on the phenomenon of meteors earlier.It wasn't until April 26, 1803, when thousands of small meteorites fell in the French town of Les Correes, that these astronomers were willing to take these falling stones seriously. Other examples could be cited to illustrate the situation of scientific conformity and the significant contributions of various paranoid figures.The German physician Robert Meyer, who suffered from mental illness, discovered the law of conservation of energy, which is a typical example.Occasionally, a layman who has nothing to do with science makes some shockingly predictive guesses, such as Swift's prediction of Mars (discussed below), or Samuel Johnson's belief (in 1781 , that is, said in a letter some 80 years before the discovery of bacteria) microorganisms are the cause of dysentery. However, great caution must be exercised in comparing the writings of some contemporary eccentrics with these former instances, so often recounted in strange writings.In medicine, we must remember that medical technology became a rigorous discipline only in the last 50 years or so.It will be recalled that in its early days medicine was inextricably bound up with superstition, and one can find innumerable examples of scientists whose views, though unconvincing at the time, were later proved to be correct.The same is true for other science departments.Today, however, the situation is quite different.The general mood among scientists is a hunger for new insights.In the great work currently being done to find a cure for cancer, people are always looking for a cure, no matter how outlandish, and if the science journals are wrong they should publish some questionable papers , that is just for discussion and examination, hoping to find something valuable.A few years ago, someone in the graduate school of Princeton University was asked how their day's seminar went.He was quoted by a news magazine as saying, "Great! Everything we learned about physics last week is all wrong!" True, one can encounter irrational prejudice against new ideas everywhere, especially among older scientists.As is the case with everyone, there is a natural tendency in old age to be opinionated.A scientist cannot be blamed for involuntarily opposing a theory that may sometimes undo the research he has devoted his life to.Even the great Galileo did not accept Kepler's theory of planetary elliptical motion long after it had been strongly demonstrated.Fortunately, there are always, in the words of Alfred Noyce, "young men who will go through fire and water with great strides" who can serve as the pioneers of the scientific revolution. It must also be admitted that in some fields of science the empirical data remain uninformative, and a point of view may acquire a fanatical following and become a rigid dogma.For example, revisions to Einstein's theory sometimes encounter similar objections to those that the theory encountered in the first place.And, no doubt, the reader is acquainted with at least one type of person who makes a particular psychoanalysis a religion; will be furious. In fact, a certain degree of dogma, that is, stubborn orthodoxy, is both necessary and desirable for the healthy development of science.It forces the scientist to gather the evidence needed from a new point of view before his theory can be seriously considered.If this did not exist, science would have to test every novel idea that came up, and would be a mess.Clearly, scientists who are making a difference have much more important things to do.If someone claims that the moon is made of fresh cheese, one cannot expect a professional astronomer to come down from the telescope to write an exhaustive refutation.Lawrence Raphson wrote in an excellent article "The Paranoid and the Scientist" (Science Monthly) November 1951): "A complete physics textbook can only be given to the University of Verlico. It is not surprising that scientists would not find it worthwhile to expend effort on this matter." Let's get down to business.The modern pseudoscientist stands entirely outside the tightly knit channels through which new ideas are introduced and evaluated.Pseudoscientists conduct research in isolation.He does not send his work to recognized journals for publication, or, even if he does, it is rejected in most cases for very good reasons.In most cases, the paranoid doesn't have the caliber to write an article that even looks like a major achievement.As a result, he found that journal submissions were not accepted, that societies were rejected, and that he was ignored by nearly all qualified scientists in his field.In fact, reputable scientists know next to nothing about the existence of the paranoid unless his work is widely disseminated through non-academic channels, or the scientist has a penchant for collecting paranoid literature.So this eccentric character had to walk a lonely road alone.He spoke to organizations he founded, wrote for magazines he edited, and, until recently, published books only because he or his followers raised enough money to print them at their own expense. A second characteristic of the pseudoscientist, and one that makes him all the more lonely, is his tendency to be paranoid.It is a mental state that, to quote a recent textbook, is "symptoms of chronic, generalized, progressive delusions, without hallucinations, with occasional slight aggravation, slowing down, or regressive tendencies." Psychosis Scholars disagree on the cause of paranoia.Even if this were not the case, it is clearly outside the scope of this book to discuss the causes of each case.It is understandable, however, that a paranoid must sink into a strong sense of personal egomania when he is alone and desperately opposed to the accepted authority in his field. If the self-appointed scientist is backed up, as is often the case, by strong religious convictions, his paranoia will be minimized.The desire to back up religious belief with science becomes a powerful motivator.For example, if we study George McCready Price, the most vehement opponent of the theory of evolution in modern times, we will see that his devout belief in the seventh-day resurrection of Jesus is enough to explain why he has those in geology. Weird point of view.Even in such cases, however, an element of paranoia is almost always present.otherwise.Pseudo-scientists would not have such a drive to fight alone in such a disparity of power.If the paranoia is faking, just to make money, or for a prank, or both, then obviously he is not acting paranoid.However, such examples are rare. The paranoid tendencies of real pseudo-scientists generally have the following five manifestations. (l) He thinks he is a genius. (2) He thinks that his colleagues, without exception, are ignorant fools.Everyone but him has strayed from the right path.He often calls his opponents stupid, dishonest, or having other dastardly motives.If they dismissed it, he took it to mean his case was irrefutable.If they fought back at all, it would add to his delusions that he was fighting a gang of villains. Take a look at this passage: "Truth is precious to me... I would rather stay isolated by sticking to what is right than follow the crowd and blindly follow what is wrong... By insisting on the views expressed in this book, I have made I was reprimanded, scorned and ridiculed by some of my colleagues. I was seen as eccentric, eccentric, unthinkable... but the truth was the truth, and though all the world opposed it and turned against me, I also Still sticking to the truth." This passage is taken from the preface to a 1931 pamphlet by Charles Sylvester de Ford of Fairfield, Washington.In this pamphlet he proves that the earth is flat.Sooner or later every pseudo-scientist reveals such sentiments. (3) He believes that he should not be suppressed and discriminated against.Recognized societies would not allow him to speak.Magazines refused to accept his articles, and either dismissed or commented on his books as "poisonous weeds".He thought it was all a dastardly conspiracy.The man with this paranoia never thinks that this opposition might be due to something wrong in his book.He was convinced that it was all due to the blind prejudice of those accomplished scholars, the high priests of science, who feared their orthodoxy should be overthrown. He often insisted that vicious slanders and baseless attacks were always directed at him.He compared himself to Bruno, Galileo, Copernicus, Pasteur, and other great figures who were unjustly persecuted for their "hereism."If he lacks professional qualifications in the field of research he is engaged in, he will attribute this suppression to a kind of mutual aid and cooperation in the scientific community, and he will not be allowed to enter the room without the corresponding initiation ceremony.He repeatedly called attention to the fact that many of the great discoveries in science were made by laymen. (4) Under irresistible impulse, he attacks with all his might the greatest scientists and the most certain theories.When Newton became a well-known figure in physics, some grotesque works appeared in this subject, which were madly opposed to Newton.Today, for such a great authority as Einstein, there is also a weird physics theory, and it seems that Einstein will be attacked in the name of Newton again.The same challenge is also manifested in the tendency to play against well-proven beliefs.Mathematicians have proved that the angle cannot be divided into thirds, so the paranoid insists on dividing it into thirds.The perpetual motion machine cannot be made, so he insisted on making one.There are many outlandish theories that replace gravity with "thrust".Certain modern paranoiacs insist that it is not germs that cause disease, but disease that produces germs.Glasses are bad for your eyes, Dr. Bates said.We'll see in the next chapter how Cyrus Teed turned the entire universe inside out and stuffed it into a hollow Earth with people only on the inside. (5) Writing articles often like to use complex and incomprehensible words and sentences.Extensive use of fabricated nouns and terms.People with schizophrenia sometimes talk about what psychiatrists call "crazy life," which makes sense for the mentally ill but not for others.Many typical works of absurd science have a flavor of "crazy talk". The IQ of the paranoid is low, as was the case with the late Weber Glenn Wallivar.He thought the earth was shaped like a pie, and he had few followers.If he's a smart thinker, he'll invent some incredibly deep theories.He will then be able to defend his theories by writing learned, well-reasoned and often well-founded scientific works.His rhetoric will be very persuasive.The parts of his world are often neatly put together like a jigsaw puzzle.It's impossible to outwit him in any kind of debate.He had anticipated all the objections of the people.He was surprisingly able to meet people's objections with some inventive answers.Even on the question of the shape of the earth, a layman would find it impotent to argue with a flat-earther.George Bernard Shaw described a meeting incisively and vividly in his book "Political Handbook".A flat-earther speech at a meeting silenced all the naysayers.George Bernard Shaw writes, "The objections which no atheist could have raised came upon him, and he had heard them a thousand times, and he accepted them as easily as at skittles. He dismissed all the questions that people thought could not be answered, and made people so angry that they were furious." In the following chapters, we provide an in-depth analysis of some of the leading pseudoscientists of recent years, with a focus on some of America's own eccentrics.Also touches on some British writings and some European grotesque theories, but not on paranoid works in many other languages.Few of these works have been translated into English, and the originals are hard to come by.Furthermore, these writings are generally irrelevant to the American situation, so comparisons with the writings of American paranoia are meaningless. With few exceptions, some theory on the broad subject of "occultism" is to be worked on.Astrology, for example, still has millions of believers, but it has nothing to do with science and doesn't seem worth discussing.The idea that sunspots bring bad luck is quite popular among conservative businessmen, who like to think that luck or bad luck is like a natural phenomenon, caused by something far away.This is a remnant of the ancient superstitious view of connecting human affairs with celestial phenomena.But these works are more properly said to belong to astronomy than to economics.It is true that there are absurd works in the social sciences, but these form a separate research topic for various reasons. Our review will begin with some grotesques in astronomy, the most remote of human subjects, pass through physics and geology to biology, and then explore the human problem through anthropology and archaeology.The book explores the pseudoscience of medicine in four chapters, then discusses sex theory, superstitious cures for psychiatry, and methods of understanding human character.Finally, the book offers a serious appraisal of Dr. Laing's venerable work and a glimpse at some of the other champions of spirituality. It is simply unbelievable how much intelligence is wasted on such frivolous pursuits.Those melancholy scientists were blinded by others and went to absurd extremes.In turn, they deceive others and lead others there as well.Looking at this situation is not only ridiculous, but sometimes terrifying.As we shall see, their followers were often very learned, and some were well-known, but they were not learned enough to see through the external illusions set by God; On the road, they are often willing to work hard.More importantly, we will get a deep impression of the common characteristics of these "scientists".When we begin to breathe the air of their whimsical worlds, we become familiar with the atmosphere in which they operate. Like an experienced doctor who can identify certain ailments at a glance when a new patient enters his consulting room; or like a police officer who recognizes the type of criminal from the cunning behavior that escapes the eyes of ordinary people. Likewise, maybe we can learn to recognize future scientific paranoia when we encounter them. We are bound to meet such people.If the current trend continues, we can expect that in the near future there will be all kinds of such characters emerging with hitherto unimaginable theories.They would write compelling books, give impassioned speeches, and organize exciting superstitions.They get 1, or 1,000,000 followers.In any case, it is in our own and society's interest to remain vigilant against them.