{"product_id":"9780191500206","title":"The Undergrowth of Science:Delusion, Self-Deception, and Human Frailty","description":"Walter Gratzer's themes in the stories he relates in this book are collective\u003cbr\u003e delusion and human folly. Science is generally seen as a process bound by rigorous\u003cbr\u003e rules, which its practitioners must not transgress. Deliberate fraud occasionally\u003cbr\u003e intrudes, but it is soon detected, the perpetrators cast out and the course of\u003cbr\u003e discovery barely disturbed. Far more interesting are the outbreaks of self-delusion\u003cbr\u003e that from time to time afflict upright and competent researchers, and then\u003cbr\u003e spreadlike an epidemic or mass-hysteria through a sober and respectable scientific\u003cbr\u003e community. When this happens the rules by which scientists normally govern their\u003cbr\u003e working lives are suddenly suspended. Sometimes these episodes are provoked by\u003cbr\u003e personal vanity, an unwillingness to acknowledge error or evencontemplate the\u003cbr\u003e possibility that a hard-won success is a will o' the wisp; at other times they stem\u003cbr\u003e from loyalty to a respected and trusted guru, or even from patriotic pride; and,\u003cbr\u003e worst of all, they may be a consequence of a political ideology which imposes its\u003cbr\u003e own interpretation on scientists' observations of the natural world. Unreason and\u003cbr\u003e credulity supervene, illusory phenomena are described and measured, and theories are\u003cbr\u003e developed to explain them - until suddenly, often for no singlereason, the bubble\u003cbr\u003e bursts, leaving behind it a residue of acrimony, recrimination, embarrassment, and\u003cbr\u003e ruined reputations.Here, then, are radiations, measured with high precision yet\u003cbr\u003e existing only in the minds of those who observed them; the Russian water, which some\u003cbr\u003e thought might congeal the oceans; phantom diseases that called for heroic surgery;\u003cbr\u003e monkey testis implants that restored the sexual powers of ageing roues and of tired\u003cbr\u003e sheep; truths about genetics and about the nature of matter, perceptible only to\u003cbr\u003e Aryan scientists in the Third Reich or Marxist ideologues in the Soviet Union; and\u003cbr\u003e much more. TheUndergrowth of Science explores, in terms accessible to the lay\u003cbr\u003e reader, the history of such episodes, up to our own time, in all their absurdity,\u003cbr\u003e tragedy, and pathos.","brand":"OUP Oxford","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47106697691376,"sku":"9780191500206","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780191500206_p0.jpg?v=1763660897","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780191500206","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}