Pseudoscience

An Amusing History of Crackpot Ideas and Why We Love Them

De: Lydia Kang MD MD, Nate Pedersen

Narrado por: Hillary Huber

From the authors of Quackery, a visual and narrative history of popular ideas, phenomena, and widely held beliefs disproven by science.

From the easily disproved to the wildly speculative, to straight-up hucksterism, Pseudoscience is a romp through much more than bad science—it’s a light-hearted look into why we insist on believing in things such as Big Foot, astrology, and the existence of aliens. Did you know, for example, that you can tell a person’s future by touching their butt? Rumpology. It’s a thing, but not really. Or that Stanley Kubrick made a fake moon landing film for the US government? Except he didn’t. Or that spontaneous human combustion is real? It ain’t, but it can be explained scientifically.

Pseudoscience is a wild mix of history, pop culture, and good old fashioned science–that not just entertains, but sheds a little light on why we all love to believe in things we know aren't true.

Another great book by these authors

And another great reading performance. This book is the perfect blend of entertainment and education. A must-read/must-listen!

Same old stories…waste of time to read.

I wanted to like this book. I even preordered it because I had enjoyed the author’s previous book. I was thoroughly bored by this book and found it surprisingly outdated for a book that just came out. I feel like the pseudoscience the book “debunks” is not largely believed, or accepted as popular culture. Bigfoot? I don’t need to waste my time “debunking” this. Crop circles? Bro, we debunked that in 2000.

There was not one innovative “debunking” that I didn’t already hear about at least ten years ago in this book. Save your money and just listen to some YouTube podcasts with more modern stories.

The one redeeming chapter on “rumpilogy” lives in my head rent free, however.

I want those 7 hours back

Here, I’ll save you the time:
All those crazy beliefs you always thought were crazy? Turns out they are.
But some paint instead of this book - you’ll be more entertained watching it dry.