Hace tiempo estaba indeciso, ahora ya no estoy tan seguro

Voodoo Science. The Road from Foolishness to Fraud por Robert L. Park. Publicado el 15 de Mayo del 2000 por Oxford University Press. ISBN-13: 9780195135152, 230 páginas.

Lo único que se me ocurre decir de este libro en estos momentos es que me ha encantado, una auténtica delicia de leer. Robert L. Park decidió que era buena idea escribir un libro sencillo que pudiese leer todo el mundo y explicase como mucha gente usa la ciencia para demostrar cosas que no son ciertas, ya sea intencionadamente o no. Desde máquinas de movimiento perpetuo que violan los principios de la termodinámica, pasando por el fiasco de la fusión fría que tanto juego dio la década pasada, tocando los sueños de Reagan y su sistema de Guerra de las Galaxias y sin olvidarnos de temas como la Homeopatía.

Si hay una cosa que marca al autor es que siempre demuestra por que se equivocan los demás de forma correcta. También analiza por qué la gente cree en estas cosas basadas en temas científicos incorrectos, por qué la prensa les dio eco…

De la contraportada

Advance praise for Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud

«Few books have had the impact on my thinking of Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusionsand the Madness of Crowds, published more than 150 years ago. It taught me that massive numbers of individuals have fallen victim to bizarre manias. Professor Park’s Voodoo Science teaches us that even in this age of science, it is still happening. My enthusiasm for this book leads me to recommend it, without reservation, to the intellectual community and The Rest of Us. Long life to Robert Park and his fellow thinkers who, sometimes with little profit to themselves, are so willing and able to lead us out of what I call ‘dumbth.'»

–Steve Allen, Humanist, musician and author.

«Bob Park, part urbane physicist, part scrappy Texan, is a national resource. He’s been observing scientist and their wannabes and their hustlers for decades, with the unblinking eye of his trade, and now he tells us what he’s seen, with the narrative cadence of Will Rogers and the blunt-lucid prose of Hemingway. As he crafts his fascinating tales of pride and sham and delusion, he invites us as well to contemplate human nature in its struggle to make sense of, and find a context in, this astonishing universe. I couldn’t put it down.»

–Ursula Goodenough, Profesor of Biology, Washington University, and author of The Sacred Depths of Nature

«New discoveries in science and technology have not only fueled an explosive economy but also have provided unheard-of opportunities to those who would mislead the public whether throught their own naivete or downright guile. The sanke oil business is alive and well. Fortunately, we have a superb scientist to strip away the numbo jumbo of these fradulent schemers and reveal them for what they are. It is frightening to read how successful some of these purveyors of nonsense have benn, even in the highest reaches of our goverment. All of us can thank PArk for saving us from ourselves.»

–Val L. Fitch, Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor and Chairman, Department of Physics, Pricenton University, Ex-President of the American Physical Society, Nobel Laureate in physics.

«Science, as Richard Faynmann suggested, is waht we have learned about how not to fool ourselves. There are few-far too few-accomplished scientiest and skilled writers who caree greatly about the ways in which people DO fool tehmselves. Pseudoscience, anti-science, and simple raud are frighteningley popular and dangerous ways, today, of fooling oursevelse about reality. Professor Park is one of those who understand the scams and take the trouble to expose them. Voodoo Science is a powerful but readable assemblage of his findings and ideas.»

–Paul Gross, University Professor of Life Sciences, University of Virginia, and co-author of Higher Superstition.

«In Voodoo Science, Robert Park demonstrates how even science itself sometimes gets put in the serrvice of delusion and self-delusion. From Star Wars to cold fusion. EMFs to UFOs, these dispatches from the front lines of scientific foolishness reveal how the things we want to believe often keep us from learning the things we need to know.»

–K.C. Cole, author of the best-seller The Universe and the Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and beauty.

«Television producers and newspaper editors have convinced themselves of a cowardly myth: the paranormalism may be drivel, but you have to serve it up because ‘people’ enjoy it more than its debunking. Professor Park does more than debunk, he crucifies. And the result is huge fun. I finished this brilliant book within a day, and then fel such withdrawal syptoms I went right back to the beginning and started again. Not only will you enjoy reading it. You’ll never again waste time or your money on sttrologers, ‘quantom healers,’ homeopaths, spoonbenders, perpetual motion merchants, or alien abduction fantasists.»

–Ricahrd Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor for the Understanding of Science, Oxford University, and author of Unweaving the Rainbow

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