This article provides a useful tool as well as an inspiration (wink, wink) and, for some hopefully, a revelation.
Reprinted with permission from Dr. Bob Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland at College Park and director of public information for the American Physical Society. He is also the author of Voodoo Science: The Road From Foolishness to Fraud (Oxford University Press, 2002). This article was originally published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan 31, 2003. -JS
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is investing close to a million dollars in an obscure Russian scientist’s antigravity machine, although it has failed every test and would violate the most fundamental laws of nature. The Patent and Trademark Office recently issued Patent 6,362,718 for a physically impossible motionless electromagnetic generator, which is supposed to snatch free energy from a vacuum. And major power companies have sunk tens of millions of dollars into a scheme to produce energy by putting hydrogen atoms into a state below their ground state, a feat equivalent to mounting an expedition to explore the region south of the South Pole.
There is, alas, no scientific claim so preposterous that a scientist cannot be found to vouch for it. Continue reading “Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science by Robert L. Park, Ph.D.”
