Description
About the Author
Michael D. Gordin is Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History and the director of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at Princeton University. He specializes in the history of modern science in Russia, Europe, and North America, in particular on issues related to the history of fringe science, the early years of the nuclear arms race, Russian and Soviet science, language and science, and Albert Einstein. He is the author of The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe, Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English, and Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin, and the End of the Atomic Monopoly.
Reviews
Gordin's book should be mandatory reading for all those interested in the nature of science and pseudoscience. On the Fringe provides an excellent exposition of a wide diversity of pseudoscientifc doctrines, something which certainly can help to devise more useful demarcation criteria. * Juan Gefaell, Metascience *
Michael Gordin's book adds at least two important aspects to the literature. First, as a historian, he puts some of the pseudosciences in a historical perspective that is seldom presented. Secondly, he contributes to the systematic treatment of pseudosciences by introducing four groups of such teachings. * SVEN OVE HANSSON, Society for US Intellectual History *
Gordin's discussion offers critical tools for students confronting a cultural context in which claims of scientific expertise carry significant-even unprecedented-consequence. * J. D. Martin, Durham University *
A fascinating exploration of the line between science and pseudoscience. * PD Smith, The Guardian *
Fascinating... a very effective and readable analysis. * Brian Clegg, Popular Science blog *
This will be helpful to anyone curious about how to separate the wheat of science from the chaff of pseudoscience. * Publishers Weekly Review *
Illuminating * Ross McFarlane, Fortean Times *
Gordin's book can best be approached as a first sketch of a very useful and promising way of studying pseudoscience rather than as a definitive account of it. * Juan Gefaell, Metascience *
Book Information
ISBN 9780197555767
Author Michael D. Gordin
Format Hardback
Page Count 128
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 266g
Dimensions(mm) 217mm * 147mm * 14mm