At the fringes of science : with a new epilogue

Scientific discoveries are constantly in the news. Almost daily we hear about new and important breakthroughs. But sometimes it turns out that what was trumpeted as scientific truth is later discredited, or controversy may long swirl about some dramatic claim. What is a nonscientist to believe? Many books debunk pseudoscience, and some others present only the scientific consensus on any given issue. In At the Fringes of Science Michael Friedlander offers a careful look at the shadowlands of science. What makes Friedlander's book especially useful is that he reviews conventional scientific method and shows how scientists examine the hard cases to determine what is science and what is pseudoscience. Emphasizing that there is no clear line of demarcation between science and nonscience, Friedlander leads the reader through case after entertaining case, covering the favorites of "tabloid science" such as astrology and UFOs, scientific controversies such as cold fusion, and those maverick ideas that were at first rejected by science only to be embraced later. There are many good stories here, but there is also much learning and wisdom. Students of science and interested lay readers will come away from this book with an increased understanding of what science is, how it works, and how the nonscientist should deal with science at its fringes. Social Science,General,Sociology

In this fascinating and engaging book, Michael Friedlander offers the first careful look at the shadowlands of science, examining the hard cases and explaining how one may differentiate science from pseudo-science.

Booknews

Surrounding scientific advancements there is a penumbral zone with no sharp boundaries, where honest errors and sloppy works appear, where fraud lies, and where discoveries that have been neither confirmed nor rejected claim recognition. In this fringe, what's trumpeted one day as scientific truth may be discredited the next. A physics professor looks at the headlines--cases of "tabloid science" such as astrology and UFOs, scientific controversies such as cold fusion, and the maverick ideas that scientists first rejected and later embraced--to examine how the experts determine what is science and what is pseudoscience. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Scientific discoveries are constantly in the news. But sometimes it turns out that what was trumpeted as scientific truth is later discredited. What is a nonscientist to believe? Here physicist Michael Friedlander offers a careful look at the shadowlands of science, examining the hard cases and explaining how a person may differentiate science from pseudo-science. In this book, Michael Friedlander provides an increased understanding of what science is, how it works, and how the nonscientist should deal with science at its fringes, showing how scientists examine the hard cases to determine what is science and what is pseudoscience.