Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction
Michael D. Gordin
Abstract
<italic>Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction</italic> explores the philosophical and historical attempts to address this problem of demarcation between science and pseudoscience. Many people would be able to agree on a list of things that fall under the umbrella of pseudoscience — astrology, phrenology, UFOlogy, creationism, and eugenics might come to mind — but a precise definition has proven impossible. This book explores a bewildering array of marginalized doctrines, focusing on some of the central debates about what science is and is not, and how such controversies have shifted over the centuries, and offers a historical and philosophical approach to fringe science and scientific controversies in the past and the present