Linda Zimmermann - Bad Science: A Brief History of Bizarre Misconceptions, Totally Wrong Conclusions, and Incredibly Stupid Theories

Eagle Press
New York

For more information, or to contact the author, go to:
www.badsciences.com

Or write to:
Linda Zimmermann
P.O. Box192
Blooming Grove, NY 10914

Bad Science

Copyright 2011 Linda Zimmermann

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.
ISBN: 978-0-9799002-4-2

CONTENTS

Medicine

A Shocking Experience

Animal Magnetism

Wheres your Sense of Humour?

The Royal Touch

Getting Your Head Read

William Harvey

Keep them From Harm

Bad Blood

Lying About Your Age

The Pen is Mightier than the Scalpel

When Good Scientists Go Bad

A Hole in One

Human Guinea Pigs

Fun with Radium and X-Rays

Chemistry and Pharmaceuticals

The Sears Catalog Did Have Everything

Legal Poison

Defective Testing

Nobel Prize for Death and Destruction

You Are What You Eat?

One Bad Apple

Dephlogistocation

Who Needs Scientists and Chemists, Anyway?

Birth, Contraception,and Sex

Its The Thought That Counts

The Birth of an Anesthetic

Burning Curiosity

Clamping Down on a Family Secret

Take Two Aspirin and Get Burned at the Stake

Breeding Like a Rabbit

Inconceivable Conception

Back in the Saddle Again

Childbed Fever

A Stitch in Time

Rule of 120

Egyptian Dick and Jane An Ancient Tale of Contraception

Dentistry

The Evil Tooth Worm

Paying with your Teeth

Rub Them Out

Hush, Little Baby

Washing your Mouth Out with What?

Geology, Paleontology, Archaeology (and other things found in dirt)

Stone Blind

Skeletons in the closet

The Cardiff Giant

Another Giant Hoax

Piltdown Man

Missing the Link

Divine Hands

The Thirst for Gold

Catch My Drift?

Be Careful What You Ask For

The Miracle Mineral

Astronomy & the Space Program

Just in Time for Dinner

A Slight Miscalculation

Not So Happy Hour

Counter-Intelligence

The More The Merrier

Job Security

Too Much of a Bad Thing

Music To His Spheres

It Takes an Upstart

Hitting Bottom

A High Stake Gamble

A Banners Day

To See, Or Not to See

Insult and Injury

They Didnt Call Them Dark For Nothing

Cant Make Them Think

Six and Six Equal Nothing

Rising Above The Occasion

Send in the Clowns

Locke, Stock, and Barrel

Castles in the Sky

As The Planets Turn

Can't Argue With Success

Blood, Sweat, and Fears

You Think Your Job Is Tough?

Eclipsing Reason

Now You See It, Now You Dont

Aiming To Please

Et Tu, Augustus?

Good Comet, Bad Comet

In The Eyes of the Beholder

Its the Thought Balls that Count

All Dressed Up and Look Out Below!

Divine Protection?

Hot Rocks

Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind

Another Nutty Professor?

One of the Few Times Bigger Isnt Better

Bad Archaeoastronomy

Friar Fire

Is Anybody Home?

Put Up and Shut Up

Martians Are Easy

Fine Line

Lunar Roving

Broken-down Chariots

Not Worth the Ink

Lets Face It

Star War?

Deep Disturbance

It Doesnt Take a Rocket Scientist

Have You Ever Been Plutoed?

Hubble, Hubble, Toil and Trouble

In Conclusion: The Mother of All Bad Space Travel (or Lack Thereof)

Scientists, Heredity, DNA, Firearms, and Everything Else that didnt Fit into Previous Categories

Spontaneous Generation

Pasteur

Shooting Your Mouth Off

William Charlton

Perpetual Fraud

Was it Dominant or Recessive Fraud?

Hereditary Nonsense

Getting the Cold Shoulder

Taking Out the Garbage?

The Unkindest Cut of All

Breathtaking Inanity

I love science.

Although I didnt realize it at the time, in retrospect I freely admit I was a science geek when I was a kid. I charted sunspots, collected bugs, built models of spacecraft, mixed household chemicals and cleaning products to see how they would react, took things apart to see how they worked, and enthusiastically tried to learn everything I could.

Even though I also loved to write and knew someday I would give it a shot, there was never any question that I would first pursue a career in science. While in college, I got a part-time job working in the Quality Control microbiology lab of a medical diagnostics company. I moved over to chemistry QC, and after graduation, became a full-time employee in the Research and Development department.

I wore the requisite white lab coat, the nerdy safety glasses and safety shoes, and was completely enamored of all the glassware, chemicals, and instrumentation. What I didnt like was the company politics, the sales and marketing people who were treated like demigods (while the scientists who created the products they sold were clearly second-class citizens), and the arrogance and outright dishonesty of some of the scientists who felt that higher degrees were something akin to being members of the aristocracy.

The writer in me stirred. These people were sullying the purity of science, and I became rather miffed. In response, I wrote a satirical newsletter called the Narwhal Gazette (its a long story), and lampooned the companys people, policies, and projects. To my astonishment, I didnt get fired! In fact, everyoneincluding the bosses and stuffy scientistsloved it, and people began lining up at the copier to get the latest issue hot off the presses. People actually wanted to be written about, and I was emboldened to be even more outrageous and daring in my satire.

The Gazette flourished for many years, until new management came in. They were not amused. I had two optionsstop writing the Gazette, or continue with the agreement that all my articles would be approved and edited by management. Inflamed with righteous indignation, there was no question that I would sooner stand before a firing squad, before I would submit to state-sanctioned censorship, so the farewell issue of the Gazette signaled the end to my humorous barbs aimed at the world of science.

Or so I thought.

When the company eliminated the R&D department, I didnt seek out another job in a lab. The magnetic pull of writing took hold and I began working on short stories, novels, history articles and books, and articles on astronomy. I also started lecturing on astronomy, and came upon the idea for a humorous program about the history of all the crazy things that were once believed. One thing led to another, and in 1995, I published the book Bad Astronomy: A Brief History of Bizarre Misconceptions, Totally Wrong Conclusions, and Incredibly Stupid Theories .

I gave presentations on Bad Astronomy at Star Parties and astronomy conventions from New England to Florida , and enjoyed every minute of it. There was the occasional audience member who thought I was being too critical of those throughout history who had committed acts of Bad Astronomy, but the overwhelming majority of people just laughed and had a good time.

I went on to many other writing projects over the years, but all the while kept my eyes open for similar examples in other fields of science, and added those stories to a folder I marked Bad Science. I knew some day another book would emerge from that overstuffed folder, and that day came in 2010, when the magnetic pull of scienceand memories of the Gazette signaled that the time had come.