Fabulous Science

Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery

John Waller

308 pages, parution le 12/12/2002

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Résumé

The great biologist Louis Pasteur suppressed data that didn't support the case he was making. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity was only 'confirmed' in 1919 because an eminent British scientist massaged his figures. Joseph Lister's famously spotless hospital wards were actually notoriously dirty. Gregor Mendel, supposed father of the science of heredity, never grasped the fundamental principles of 'Mendelian' genetics. Often startling, always enthralling, Fabulous Science reveals the truth behind these and many other myths in the history of science.
Readership: General readers with an interest in science and history, and in science with a human face; historians of science; scientists and science writers.

Contents

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: what is history for?
Part 1: Right for the wrong reasons
1 The pasteurization of spontaneous generation
2 'The battle over the electron'
3 The eclipse of Isaac Newton: Arthur Eddington's 'proof' of general relativity
4 Very unscientific management
5 The Hawthorne studies: finding what you are looking for
Conclusion to Part 1: sins against science?
Part 2: Telling science as it was
6 Myth in the time of cholera
7 'The priest who held the key': Gregor Mendel and the ratios of fact and fiction
8 Was Joseph Lister Mr Clean?
9 The Origin of Species by means of use-inheritance
10 'A is for ape, B is for Bible': science, religion, and melodrama
11 Painting yourself into a corner: Charles Best and the discovery of insulin
12 Alexander Fleming's dirty dishes
13 'A decoy of Satan'
Conclusion to Part 2: sins against history?
Notes on sources

L'auteur - John Waller

Research Fellow, Wellcome Trust for the History of Medicine, University College London; Research Fellow, History of Science Department, Harvard University

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Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	Oxford University Press
Auteur(s)	John Waller
Parution	12/12/2002
Nb. de pages	308
Format	16 x 24
Couverture	Relié
Poids	732g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9780192804044