HIST3854 - History of Pseudoscience in America

El Chupacabra in a hurry

 

Dr. Brian Regal

Professor for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine

Department of History, LHAC 212

email: bregal@kean.edu

Earth versus the Flying Saucers (1955)

Course Description:

A social and intellectual history of pseudoscience in America from 1800 to the present.  Ideas and claims made that the mainstream dismisses as outside the bounds of scientific inquiry or which do not follow the scientific method.

Course Objectives:

This class will approach the material from a philosophy of science point of view.  Students will gain a basic familiarity with the history of pseudoscience.  They will learn the importance of being able to tell the difference between genuine science and its imitations, and how such beliefs can adversely affect modern society, government, and the national future. They will learn to apply various methodologies of historical research to the study of pseudoscience.  Students will show their expertise through a series of examinations and written research projects on the topic.

• Syllabus Spring 2023 (NOTE: the syllabus is subject to change over the course of the semester).

 

NOTE: There will be a mandatory campus class walk (only when class is offered at the main Union Campus), Ghost Tour of Kean University.

Required textbook

There is no required textbook for this class. There will be a list of required articles to be read. See the syllabus and below.

Required reading

• What is pseudoscience?

• Ute Frietschu - in part on the origins of the word pseudoscience (2015)

• Thagard on Astrology

• Gieryn on Demarcation

• Excerpt from Charles Fort's Book of the Damned

• Astrology in Early America

• Excerpt from Von Daniken

• Excerpt from Hollow Earth

• The Devil is a Dinosaur

• Lawson on Loch Ness

• The Jersey Devil

• Ghost Hunting

• Thomas Kuhn revisited

• History of Eugenics

• History of Intelligent Design

• Robert Henson, The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change (2014) excerpt

• Vaccinations as a Cause of Autism: Myths and Controversies

• The History of Vaccinations

• Vaccines and their Critics

• The Irish slave meme

• Some words history students should know

 

Supplemental Reading and Viewing: strongly suggested but not required

• Demarcation Socialized

• Seven Sins of Pseudoscience

• Progress as a Demarcation Criterian

• Kuhn's view of Popper

• The Case Against MMR

    http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/conspiracy-theories-a-threat-to-democracy

    • Kuhn by Hollinger

    • Nostradamus, complete first edition (1555)

    • The Ten Commandments of telling Science from Pseudoscience

Robert Bartholomew. Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking(2003).

Christine Garwood. Flat Earth: history of an infamous idea (2008).

Donna Kossy.  Kooks: A Guide to the Outer Limits of Human Belief (2001).

David Rowe. God's Strange Work: William Miller and the end of the world (2008).

These books are in the Kean Library


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On-Line Resources:

1776 Commission Report

1600 Scanned Occult Books

Cambridge University Historiography of Science page:

http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/research/hs.html

Crank.Net for everything cranky

http://www.crank.net/

Forum for some of the latest debates and news from the world of Cryptozoology:

Cryptomundo

http://www.cryptomundo.com/

Fortean Times - journal of strange phenomena

http://www.forteantimes.com/

Fulnama: Book of Omens medieval Ottoman books on divination, exhibit at the Smithsonian

http://purplemotes.net/2009/11/10/fortune-showing-tops-fortune-telling/

Louisiana religious school teaches Loch Ness monster as biology which disproves evolution

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/loch-ness-monster-real-dinosaur-biology-books-taught-louisiana-school-article-1.1102340

Monster Talk, podcast on everything monstery

http://www.skeptic.com/podcasts/monstertalk/

NCSE National Center for Science Education

http://ncseweb.org/

QuackWatch

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pseudo.html

Robert Schadewald Collection on Pseudo-Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison

http://madcat.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&CNT=25&CMD=gkey+schadewald+AND+gkey+collection

Skeptic Magazine

http://www.skeptic.com/

Skeptical Inquirer

http://www.csicop.org/si/

Strange Enthusiasms

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-3.4/macdougall.html

Witch Trial original manuscript sources, Harvard

https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:433629176$1i

Keely engine hoax

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• Kean University Department of History Main Page

• Kean University Main Page

http://www.kean.edu/