It Seemed Like a Good Idea...An Exploration of How Science Works

An Exploration of how Science Works

• And how it fails! It Seemed like a Good Idea.... •How do we know what is right in science? Peter Watson •What do we teach our students? •How should a science journalist think? •The “Amadeus effect”

History is Written by the Victors. Winston Churchill History is Written by the Victors. Winston Churchill History will be kind to me, since I intend to write it myself History will be kind to me, since I intend to write it myself

We can learn a lot by looking at the history of wrong ideas. In many cases, the wrong ideas have simply been forgotten. Also, correct ideas have taken a very long time to be accepted. Usually the scientiﬁc method works in the end, but prejudice, preconceptions, racism and plain stupidity have hindered scientiﬁc progress. Also buried in the wrong ideas are nuggets of insight

The Alchemist (Peter Breughel) The Alchemist (Peter Breughel) Examples include Outline • Alchemy and Chemistry 1.How Science Should work • Astrology and Astronomy • The Ptolemaic Model of the Solar System 2.Journalism: Friend and Foe! Lysenko and Acquired Characteristics • 3.Lightning • Eugenics • Wegener's Theory of Continental Drift 4.The solar system: Ptolemy, Vulcan and Velikovsky • Freud and Dreams • Maclintock and Jumping Genes 5.Energy: Perpetual Motion and Cold Fusion • Pons-Fleischmann and Cold Fusion 6.Evolution: Lamarck, Lysenko, Creationism and • Velikovsky and the Solar System Intelligent Design. • The E8 Particle Simulator (Lisi, surfer dude) "who is shaking up the theoretical physics ﬁeld with his controversial yet elegant 7.The fraudsters. theory to unify pretty much everything in physics by mapping it onto the beautiful E8" 8.The Deniers: Smoking, AIDS, climate change