Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction

Michael D. Gordin

May 2023 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Kyle Snyder

About this audiobook

Everyone has heard of the term "pseudoscience," typically used to describe something that looks like science, but is somehow false, misleading, or unproven. Given the virulence of contemporary disputes over the denial of climate change and anti-vaccination movements-both of which display allegations of "pseudoscience" on all sides-there is a clear need to better understand issues of scientific demarcation. Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction explores the philosophical and historical attempts to address this problem of demarcation. This book argues that by understanding doctrines that are often seen as antithetical to science, we can learn a great deal about how science operated in the past and does today. This exploration raises several questions: How is the status of science shaped by political or cultural contexts? How does pseudoscience differ from scientific fraud? Michael D. Gordin both answers these questions and guides listeners along a bewildering array of marginalized doctrines, looking at parapsychology (ESP), Lysenkoism, scientific racism, and alchemy, among others, to better understand the struggle to define what science is and is not. Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction provides a historical tour through many of these fringe fields in order to provide tools to think deeply about scientific controversies.

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.

Kyle Snyder is a classically trained pianist with thirty-five years of experience. He enjoys playing sports, cooking, board games, and, of course, narrating audiobooks. His favorite genre is science fiction. He lives in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, with his wife and four kids.