Customer Reviews

Scientific Blunders (Tr)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Like one of the other reviewers, I was offended by the bad scholarship. The title of the book is "Scientific Blunders" and the aim of the book is to lay bare several misconceptions in the history of science. I had these things in my mind, when I took a deep dive to the book.

In my opinion, the following statement should be pretty obvious: when deciding if something is science or not, one is making value judgement based on a certain conception of science. So, in the introductory chapter I would have excepted to find a definition of science, but couldn't find one. When my reading progressed, I was constantly waiting for the aforementioned definition - but still couldn't find it.

At certain point of my reading, it became clear to me, that the writer is not trying to convince the reader with logically and conceptually sound and coherent proof, but with rhetorics and assertions based on an implicit, narrow and (propably) philosphically poorly justified conception of science. For that reason the word "science" started to look like a magical word, which is somehow mysteriously expected to explain itself. But, it is pointless to continue on this track.

To summarize: the aim of the book is ambitious, but the attempt falls dolefully short. If I had a second chance, I would buy some other book and not waste my money to this... well, rubbish.

The 'Blunders' mentioned in this book are only an excuse to take the reader on an exciting journey through the very broad spectrum of science. You can actually compare this book with a menu card you would get in The Restaurant of Science: a starter of Evolution Theory, a main course of Physics, a slice of Biology and maybe some Technology as a dessert?

The common thread through all these chapters -being how wrong things can get- gives the reader an interesting view on what scientific prove actually means. All scientists are humans (we hope...) and this gives rise to emotional arguments popping up from time to time. What happens when you mix these with experimental research has been illustrated in abundance: carelessness, wrong-headedness, arrogance, moral fear or plain bad luck. Fair, not all 'blunders' are worthy of this tag, quite a lot are just as can be expected from a normal struggle for the truth. But still, science would have been far more advanced if these human influences could have been avoided. But isn't this a utopia?

Although the title might suggest some humorous content, it certainly does not deliver on these expectations. The tongue-in-cheek approach makes the topics quite more readable, but does not reduce the explanations to kindergarten gibberish. It is true that a few facts are plainly wrong, but the main message of the book doesn't suffer from this.

To conclude: it's a nice book intended for a general public and easy to read (I read it on a plane). It lets you browse through popular science in a relaxed manner. Hopefully this will encourage people to dive deeper into the topics they find interesting. But be aware: people who think of science as a sacred institution might get offended by this book.

do not expect some kind of a breath taking find in the book, the name of this book should be more of a breif history of scientific misconseptions.
good book for easy reading and popular science history, no more but no less as well. nice book to have on the shelf.

I suspect many of those who bought this book did so in the hope that it would contain arguments to denigrate science in favor of their own religious/pseudoscientific beliefs. Its effect is just the opposite. It points out clearly that science is a dynamic and testable process that continuously revises and upgrades itself, often to the demise of previously widely subscribed notions where pseudoscience knows no error in itself and thereby is condemned to be erroneous. The author may not be an expert in the details of all the fields he discusses (and who could be?) but his analytic approach is on the mark. It is no wonder that those who are uncomfortable the notion of a changing paradigm are eager to downrate it, they just don't get the point.

As a layman I am offended at the bad scholarship of this book. The author conveniently did not allow his credentials--obviously he is uneducated--to be placed on the back cover. If I had written this book I would want to remain unknown also.

The book is filled with assertions--NO FOOTNOTES!--that are untrue. His ignorance of the history of science, the history of philosophy and the history of religions make this book a complete waste of money. I hope I can return it.

Buy some other book. Anything but this one. Hopefully it will soon go out of print.

At the start of this interseting sounding book, the author points out that we should not judge scientific blunders with 20/20 hindsight. After saying this, he goes on to do just that in most cases. Many "blunders" were simply hypotheses that turned out to be wrong as new information came in or simply beurocratic errors.

Most annoying is his tendancy to stand up on a soapbox and denounce the evils of anything that is not based on "the epitome of rational thought which is science" (or words to that effect). Psychoanalysis, economics, and even medicine come under attack for not meeting his criteria for science and therefore constituting blunders of the highest magnitude. Combined with the frequent errors in word use and scientific information, this holier-than-thou attitude makes it clear that he is more interested in scoring points against certain disciplins than pursuing the putative purpose of the book.

This book is very disappointing, on average there is an error on every page. This makes the arrogant tone with which he describes 'blunders' even more annoying. The author has obviously no idea what he writes about. Don't buy this book.

I'm a senior in high school. I found the content of the book to be average. At times, it seemed as if the authors intention was to add pages to the book rather than entertain the reader. And, even as a small-time high school reader, I was able to spot the factual errors stated by the other reviewers. I don't want to bash the book, though. I think it was a well-composed mixture of entertaining stories. About 1/4 of the way through the book, I realized that there were less "Blunders" in the text than stories of accidents and misconceptions.

Feel free to contact me with questions. Right now, I'd say I'm happy I bought the book. But, I read a lot - my opinion could easily change.

I'd really like to read a book about scientific blunders, but this certainly isn't it. For the most part, it's a review not of scientific blunders but of commonplace mistaken notions of the past--the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the universe, alchemy, perpetual motion, and so on. All done very superficially, as if from an encyclopedia. I can imagine having a reason to refer to it sometime in the future, which is why it's not a total waste (and why I gave it two stars instead of one), but if I didn't already own it, I definitely wouldn't buy it.

Sometimes teachers of science have difficulty interesting students in science, especially if those students have disabilities. This book is a humorous account of theories and belief systems that have been discarded or disproved through the scientific method. Since science is an ongoing experience, many things that we believe now will go on to be disproven or be percieved by future generations as blunders or incredibly naive. It is good for those interested in science to see that scientists, even good ones, are not infallible. It is also helpful to realize that it is through trial and error that correct science understanding and discoveries are made. Unlike some of the other reviewers, as a scientist and an educator, I find it ridiculous to expect everyone view scientists as being in a higher category then everyone else. Students need to understand that mistakes are made in every field and it is through those mistakes that we learn. My only complaint about the book is that it was choppy writing which makes it difficult for learning disabled and those who are deaf or non-native English readers to read this book. Otherwise this very tongue-in-cheek book will be where my students can reach it for their own enjoyment of interesting developments in scientific fields. If mistakes were made, that is up to me the teacher to point that out or for the student to discover on their own as they continue to research what interests them. Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh