Alternative Treatments for Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Insights from Practitioners and Patients
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Superb Book!
  • This book not recommended
  • Superb Resource!
  • Excellent book!
  • A wonderful resource for anybody with either FM or CFS
Alternative Treatments for Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Insights from Practitioners and Patients
Mari Skelly , and Andrea Helm
Manufacturer: Hunter House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0897932714

Book Description

Personal testimony from patients and their medical practitioners frames the resounding message of this book: there are a host of alternative therapies available to help people with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, a condition of chronic pain. An important resource for people with these conditions, this book also covers health insurance and disability benefit considerations.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Superb Book!.......2005-01-24

I found this book to be hugely informative and helpful. The authors give readers information from both the physicians' and patients' point of view. Definitely recommended for FM and CFS patients and the people who care about them.

2 out of 5 stars This book not recommended.......2004-10-17

I found this book to be very disappointing. All this book basically is is interviews with doctors and patients in regards to different treatment alternatives. If you are trying to TREAT fibromyalgia, i definitely do not recommend this book. If you really want someones gripes and groans about fibromyalgia you can get that point of view FREE on line on Fibromyalgia web sites. If you want alternative treatments options- try The Fibromyalgia Nutrition Guide, although this book is all about nutrition, it is very easy to us and very helpful- All us fibromyalgics know about homeopathic stuff already such as massage and Alternative Treatments just reiterates that and has patients and doctor points of view on Massage, Chiropractic care, Etc....

5 out of 5 stars Superb Resource!.......2000-05-01

It's so rare to read a piece of nonfiction, particularly medical nonfiction, and be able to tell that the authors truly care. This is one of these books! Many thanks to the authors for putting it together so beautifully!

5 out of 5 stars Excellent book!.......1999-12-19

I really enjoyed this book. It is easy to read and provides a wealth of information about various ways to treat and cope with fibromyalgia. It is particularly nice to hear the stories and experiences of others who have this illness. This book is unlike any other out there and I want to thank the authors for writing it.

5 out of 5 stars A wonderful resource for anybody with either FM or CFS.......1999-11-08

This is the book that I've been trying to find for years! The authors have done a wonderful job of interweaving the stories of patients with the helpful advise from practitioners of all kinds. It is great to have the full range of treatments from both conventional medicine as well as alternative & complementary medicine. The stories from the patients are so validating to hear. It helps to know that I am not alone in my daily job of managing this illness. The resource guide and bibliography are invaluable. Thank you SO much for writing this book!

The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • "the horrors of war more than counterbalance the glory"
  • Get inside the mind of the Union Soldier!
  • Vivid Details about the Northern Soldiers Combat experience
  • Very interesting study, but contains doubtful analysis
  • An Excellent Psychoanalytical Treatment on the Union Soldier
The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat
Earl J. Hess
Manufacturer: University Press of Kansas
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

GeneralGeneral | 19th Century | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0700614214

Book Description

I saw enough to sicken the heart. . . . The scenes which I witnessed were enough to overthrow all imaginations concerning the glory of war; but, dreadful as they were, I hope and believe that I would be willing to suffer the worst, . . . rather than prove a traitor to the trust which our country reposes in all her sons.--J. Spangler Kieffer, Pennsylvania Militia

With its relentless bloodshed, devastating firepower, and large-scale battles often fought on impossible terrain, the Civil War was a terrifying experience for a volunteer army. Yet, as Earl Hess shows, Union soldiers found the wherewithal to endure such terrors for four long years and emerge victorious.

A vivid reminder that the business of war is killing, Hess's study plunges us into the hellish realms of Civil War combat--a horrific experience crowded with brutalizing sights, sounds, smells, and textures. We share the terror of being shot at for the first time and hear the "grating sound a minie ball makes when it hits a bone instead of the heavy thud when it strikes flesh." We are assaulted by choruses of groans from the wounded and dying and come to understand why most soldiers returned to battle with great dread.

Drawing extensively upon the letters, diaries, and memoirs of Northern soldiers, Hess reveals their deepest fears and shocks, and also their sources of inner strength. By identifying recurrent themes found in these accounts, Hess constructs a multilayered view of the many ways in which these men coped with the challenges of battle. He shows how they were bolstered by belief in God and country, or simply by their sense of duty; how they came to rely on the support of their comrades; and how they learned to muster self-control in order to persevere from one battle to the next.

Although our ability to appreciate war as it was conducted in the previous century has been clouded by our familiarity with modern conflicts, Hess's study conveys that reality with an immediacy rarely matched by other books. Even more, it urges us to reconsider these soldiers not as victims of the battlefield but rather as victors over the worst that war can inflict.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars "the horrors of war more than counterbalance the glory".......2007-09-29

So writes Pennsylvanian Jacob Heffelfinger after his first battle in the Civil War. Heffelfinger is one of the dozens of veterans whose letters and memoirs Hess examined to write this study of the Union soldier under fire. His chapters examine the visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile experience of battle; strategies for coping with battle-fear before, during, and after the shooting; and the ways in which combat veterans in the Civil War remembered their experiences (this, in the final chapter, may be the book's single most important contribution).

Unhappily, the book is fundamentally flawed by Hess' strange claim that the Civil War veteran was a victor over his dreadful experiences rather than a victim, and so he seems to appreciate neither the poignancy of the firsthand accounts he cites or the horrific post-war psychological and physical damage endured by the veterans. A book published the same year Hess's appeared, Eric T. Dean's _Shook Over Hell: Post-Traumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil War_, is a more sensitive study, as is Gerald Linderman's _Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War_ (1987), a deservedly classic treatment with which Hess explicitly disagrees. In short, Hess deserves our gratitude for the wealth of firsthand testimony he cites. But his analysis of its significance falls short.

5 out of 5 stars Get inside the mind of the Union Soldier!.......2003-06-23

Author Earl Hess has defined the Union soldier in this interesting book covering many topics. Hess has taken a fresh look at soldiering and has brought the psychology of the soldier mind together with insightful material. Topics facing soldiers such as enlisting, fighting battles, defining courage, knowing war, memories and the daily grind of war has been presented in a great format. Hess adds quotes from soldiers that enhance the chapters and bring things to a closer personal level. Hess also explains how soldiers coped after the war and how they filtered back into society. This an excellent book that gets into the psychological mind set of the Union soldier and is not a book like Hardtack Coffee that covers more material topics. To understand the Union soldier this a great reference tool that helps get inside of the minds of these fighting men. 5 STARS!

4 out of 5 stars Vivid Details about the Northern Soldiers Combat experience.......2003-02-18

In this rather short book, Earl Hess goes into detail about what combat was like for the Northern Solier in the American Civil War. Using mainly letters written by veterans, the book explains why most Northern soldiers were able to endure the horrors of Civil War combat, and how this experience shaped their perspective of the conflict.

I found the book fascinating. It really gets into the personal history of the war, as seen through the eyes of thos who fought it. If you are looking for a glimpse into the intensity of Civil War fighting, this book will open your eyes to what it may have been like. The only reason I did not give this book five stars is that the writing is rather dry, and merely factual during certain chapters.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about the Civil War combat experience of the Northern Soldier. It was gruesome, noisy, confusing, exhilirating, and harrowing. How so many were able to endure this hardship and keep fighting until the war was won still remains somewhat of a mystery to me.

3 out of 5 stars Very interesting study, but contains doubtful analysis.......2001-06-22

This is the sort of historical writing that I really find interesting: the study of mentalities among a group of people engaged in highly stressful activity. Hess does wonderfully at describing what battle was like and setting forth the ways in which it challenged men's courage. I found, however, that some of his analysis seemed forced. He makes statements which are not really supported by his sources. For example, he makes the claim that veteran soldiers were more likely to call truces with the enemy to trade coffee and tobacco and so on because they felt more self-confident than new recruits. But in fact, other sources I have read indicate that such truces were more common early in the war, before the soldiers got to taking it all so seriously. In other places, too, Hess makes claims about what was going through the soldiers' minds without really supporting these claims with quotes. He gives an interesting analysis of postwar viewpoints and the way veterans psychologically justified the hell they had gone through. I do wish that he or a colleague would write a similar study of Confederate soldiers, particularly on postwar viewpoints, since that would seem to be where they would differ the most.

4 out of 5 stars An Excellent Psychoanalytical Treatment on the Union Soldier.......2000-07-19

Earl J. Hess's book "The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat" is a lucid and convincing account of the Union soldier's adjustment to the harrowing experience of combat. Hess's straightforward use of soldiers' correspondence and memoirs presents the reader with an illustrative candor which boldly challenges any romantic depiction of Civil War combat. Before the Union soldier first "saw the elephant", he was often infused by a sense of idealistic patriotism; a romantic notion of war which inspired him to enlist. Hess posits that these soldiers adjusted well to combat, however, and used their common bond with other soldiers to control their fear of both combat and dying. Sure, they retreated at the first sight of combat but Hess tends do defend this by factoring in human nature. We all get scared. In fact, Hess points out that retreating was also used as a strategic motivator. The author's rather humanistic portrayal of the Union soldier suggests that he was not perfect but, at the same time, he knew that he had a job to do and to live up to his part of the bargain. Hess's portrayal of the Union soldier as a pragmatic yet idealistic fighter is most interesting. The grim descriptions of the battlefield given by soldier accounts vividly bring the Union soldier's transformation from civilian to soldier alive. I found this book to be a refreshing read in the sense that it presented a side of the Union soldier that needs to be examined further. It is a needed accompaniment to Bell Wiley's "Billy Yank". In this era of post-Vietnam scholarship on the effects of combat on soldiers, this is a welcome book. The primary research was detailed and the presentation was clear. The only thing preventing me from giving it "5 stars" was that I feel the author may have covered the effects of the Emancipation Proclamation on the ideology of the Union soldier and his reasons for fighting the war. Overall, a great book.
Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat.
Average customer rating: Not rated
    Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat.
    Earl J. Hess
    Manufacturer: Hess, Earl J. The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat. (Modern War Studies.) University Press of Kansas, 1997. Hardcover. 244pp. As new / near new dust jacket.
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover
    ASIN: B000TAA7UE
    Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat.
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat.

      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Hardcover
      ASIN: B000ICAWYY

      Elizabeth's Wars: War, Government and Society in Tudor England, 1544-1604 (British History in Perspective)
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        Elizabeth's Wars: War, Government and Society in Tudor England, 1544-1604 (British History in Perspective)
        Paul E.J. Hammer
        Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Paperback

        GeneralGeneral | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
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        ASIN: 0333919432

        Book Description

        The human and financial cost of war between 1544 and 1604 strained English government and society to their limits. Paul E. J. Hammer offers a new narrative of these wars which weaves together developments on land and sea. Combining original work and a synthesis of existing research, Hammer explores how the government of Elizabeth I overhauled English strategy and weapons to create forces capable of confronting the might of Habsburg Spain.
        Elizabeth's Wars : War, Government and Society in Tudor England, 1544-1604
        Average customer rating: Not rated
          Elizabeth's Wars : War, Government and Society in Tudor England, 1544-1604
          Paul E.J. Hammer
          Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Paperback
          ASIN: B000OV3JKS

          Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phenomena, and Other Heterodoxies
          Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
          • Here's a Sampler of Sparkling Sentences --If You Like Them, Buy the Book!
          • Essential Reading For the True Skeptic
          • How Much We Don't Yet Know!
          Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phenomena, and Other Heterodoxies
          Henry H. Bauer
          Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
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          Binding: Hardcover

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          Book Description

          Although science attempts to draw a clear line separating its endeavors from those of "pseudoscience," Henry Bauer reveals that the distinction is both equivocal and misleading. Setting aside science's snowy mantle of truth, Bauer presents pseudoscience--or anomalistics--not as the opposite of science but as something that develops parallel to it.

          Science assumes anomalies--that is, phenomena that contradict the existing store of knowledge--result from error, contamination, or even deception: in short, from bad research technique, at best, and deliberate hoax, at worst. Anomalists, by contrast, accept such occurrences, often on the basis of eyewitness claims, as important in themselves and worthy of further study, even if they contradict prevailing theories and offer a minimal degree of reproducibility.

          Science or Pseudoscience explores the diffuse and porous borders between mainstream and unorthodoxy. A scientist himself, Bauer points out that some phenomena that have turned out to be spurious, such as polywater and cold fusion, were for a time taken quite seriously by respected members of the scientific community. Other anomalies, such as ball lightning and meteorites, were dismissed by many scientists but turned out to be legitimate discoveries. Meanwhile, science has failed to prove that phenomena encompassed by the "big three" subjects in anomalistics--parapsychology, ufology, and cryptozoology (e.g., the Loch Ness monster)--do not exist. Rather, science theorizes that these phenomena cannot exist, since today's scientific laws seem to hold them to be impossible.

          Bauer discusses anomalies such as archaeoastronomy (e.g., Stonehenge) and bioelectromagnetics and looks at how institutional, commercial, and political interests influence borderline research in mainstream laboratories. He also draws a distinction between fraud and commercial huckstering, on the one hand, and genuine knowledge-seeking about matters ignored by the established intellectual disciplines, on the other.

          Bauer notes that the more closely anomalistic research approaches science, the more strenuously it is criticized by the establishment, often in terms of heresy. Reminding us that geniuses are cranks who happen to be right while cranks may be geniuses who happen to be wrong, Science or Pseudoscience offers a measured and thoughtful assessment of this volatile debate.

          Customer Reviews:

          5 out of 5 stars Here's a Sampler of Sparkling Sentences --If You Like Them, Buy the Book!.......2005-12-17

          I can't add much to the Reader & Editorial Reviews. What I can do is communicate the flavor of the book with the following gems, from the first 60 pages. There are lots more.
          ===========================

          ix: those who sneer at "pseudoscience" reveal scientism, the belief that only science is authoritative when it comes to knowledge.

          2: as things stand, there is available no quick or easy guidance about what to believe, not only on the many matters over which apparently competent people differ but also over some where the experts seem to be in agreement. At times we do well to believe what we're told; at other times we had better not. Sometimes there's no better guide than the experience of what you've seen for yourself; at other times your eyes deceive you. We should be open to new ideas-but on the other hand we should always be skeptical and critical before accepting a new idea, for old beliefs are often well tested by experience whereas new ones may just be untested hunches. It's good to see the whole picture, to be holistic, to be interdisciplinary-but on the other hand in many fields progress requires concentration on ultraspecialized techniques, theories, and facts.

          5: Science has itself become a sort of church, and scientists are in that sense also priests (Knight, 1986). Science nowadays like the church in earlier centuries feels responsible for the intellectual orderliness of society. Thus pseudoscience is heretical belief-not merely wrong but an actual danger to the proper functioning of society and the welfare of humankind. The passion that authority always vents against heresy is directed nowadays in the name of science against pseudoscience.

          6-7: Confronted with what they do not yet properly understand, those who claim to speak for science are reluctant to admit ignorance, and therefore their answers often discount or evade.

          7: much popular wisdom idealizes science. Perhaps the most common illusion is that science uses a "scientific method" that guarantees objectivity (Bauer 1992a; Bauer and Huyghe 1999).

          7: My ulterior motive is not to disparage science but to suggest that serious anomalistics be allowed a measure of respect as an honest seeking of knowledge ....

          14: the distinction between natural science and social science is clear enough for the present purpose: between, respectively, certain and merely probable consequences of a given set of circumstances. That's the essence of it, and for many purposes it is a world of difference.

          16: The "skeptical" in Skeptical Inquirer and the "skeptics" in the names of many groups employing that label interprets skepticism in the sense of those ancient Greeks who actively disbelieved, the atheists, rather than in the nowadays more commonly understood sense of agnostics, people who suspend judgment, who maintain an attitude of doubt. [I've dubbed such persons "scoftics"--RK.] CSICOP and its "Skeptics" are doubtful only about unorthodox beliefs, which they judge in the light of contemporary scientific knowledge that they do believe.

          18: in most cases the contrast [between serious and cranky anomalistics] is clear enough: it is between, on the one hand, the assertion that here are mysteries to be solved and, on the other, blandly dogmatic assertions of "truths" that contradict established scientific knowledge.

          26: Mainstream disciplines behave as though the unknown unknown doesn't exist; perhaps just because it cannot be directly investigated.

          27: Social science ... seems to assume that it can establish expertise only if, as in the natural sciences, it is able to command a body of understanding that the laity cannot share because it runs counter to common sense: "what the sociologists say about common sense is the self-serving ideology of a vested interest group seeking to establish and maintain a monopoly over `its' professional turf" (Pease 1981:266).

          27-28: some anomalistic researchers are as competent as any in the mainstream of science ....

          29: The media feature the accomplishments of the sciences; the "news value" of anomalistics lies in its absurdities.

          29: Research in anomalistics suffers from lack of resources ....

          30-31: Anomalistics lacks any such organized literature. ... Compendia of data are not often available, even when they would be highly desirable, as for instance comprehensive listings of reported sightings of Nessies.

          33: There exists no comprehensive account of all the premature or false trails that science has taken. By and large the history of science has focused on the successes of science.

          36: The jockeying for prominence in science is well disciplined ... In anomalistics, jockeying for position often is less a matter of seeking approval of peers or making contributions to the field than of attracting attention from the media. Anomalistics therefore makes news more through the charlatans, hoaxers, and absurdities that plague it than for its serious investigations.

          36: eyewitness testimony proves little if anything in science-just in a few pockets like field biology. [!]

          37: Personal experiences are not repeatable on demand .... if their facts were reproducible, cryptozoology would be zoology and parapsychology would be psychology.

          38: organizational differences then amplify characteristics of the fields' practices. Thus much of the strength of science stems directly from the efficient, workmanlike, task-oriented procedures of the scientific community; and the weaknesses of anomalistics have much to do with the lack of such communally governed practices.

          41: Within the various anomalistic fields one sometimes sees attempts at an appearance of solidarity in the face of the dismissiveness and contempt displayed by science, media, and "skeptics." The clearest instances of this are the typical refusal to discuss their differences publicly or to admit, as they privately believe, that some of their number are incompetent or worse. ... Of course this is misguided and self-defeating in the longer run, but it's typical of all guilds and groups.

          41: Bigfoot enthusiasts and those who hunt dinosaurs in the Congo may respect one another when they stop to take notice, but they rarely communicate with one another and have little natural of instinctive affinity with one another. There is no general feeling of commonality between ufologists and cryptozoologists, or between either of those and parapsychologists.

          47: "How could anyone believe that?" ... The underlying presumption is that everyone ought to have the same beliefs because we believe-or should believe-only things that are true.
          Many people tend to believe whatever they're told-even by con-men. Others tend to believe the opposite of whatever they're told. Few indeed are skeptical and empirical in a disciplined fashion. The real mystery about belief is not how we come to believe something, but rather how some of us are able sometimes to change our minds under the force of evidence and logic rather than emotion.
          The passion in many arguments ... [is] an inevitable corollary of a human wish for certainty.

          48: "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proofs," is a common aphorism. But fundamentally the issue is, rather, whether to trust empirical evidence or contemporary scientific theory. The opposing sides usually fail to recognize how close this lies to the root of their polarization. ... In anomalistics, the true believers tend to pose as determinedly empirical .... The debunkers, on the other hand, stand on the existing theoretical paradigm; such things didn't or don't happen because they cannot. David Hume is constantly cited as to the possible occurrence of miracles .... But current scientific knowledge is not necessarily the last word.

          49: It seems natural to reject reports of some happening when there's no plausible conceivable mechanism by which it could occur.... But ... are there not many things that we accept to happen even though we don't understand how they do, such as psychosomatic illness and the placebo effect?
          The implacable demand for "mechanism" reveals a strict materialism. Those who insist on it are not really relying on science ...

          50: even some purely material phenomena are indubitably real despite our inability to explain them. Cosmic rays are generated by a phenomenon whose energy is of a magnitude that baffles our ability to conceive of a mechanism. The homing instincts and communicating ability of insects are unquestioned, while our explanations for them are tentative at best. The ice ages did occur, but we don't understand how or why they came about. And so on.

          In the past, some of the most excellent arguments proved to be false, as to why something just could not be so. [Listed are meteorites, drifting continents, and charged ions in water.] These all seem fine arguments. It's just that they were incorrect, as in many other cases of resistance by mainstream science to the startlingly new. ...

          53: It takes much longer to explain why a point is erroneous than it took to assert the point. It can be very tiresome to answer in full detail what seems like a poorly based, incoherent case for something highly improbable. ... The frustrations of arguing with a crank have been described with feeling by some who have had or witnessed the experience (Russell 1956; Shaw 1944). ... Drawn into dispute, frustrated experts may become arrogantly dismissive ... and they lose debating points and public credibility.

          55: Rarely if ever is anomalistics given credit for grains of truth. Velikovsky was and is said to be "wrong" .... One arguably less-than-competent laboratory is asserted to typify all of parapsychology, whereas one less-than-competent forensics laboratory is hardly taken to show that forensics is pseudoscience.

          55: Rhetorical questions abound. ... "How could bones of Bigfoot not be found if they exist, with so many people finding footprints of them?" And so on and so forth. Once a given issue is settled one way or the other, answers to such questions will be evident enough; indeed, they are likely to appear obvious in hindsight. Before the issues are settled, however, the inability to provide conclusive answers proves nothing.

          56-57: Debunkers typically seek to establish guilt by association. It's no easy task to discredit entirely the major anomalist claims by careful discussion of the evidence. It's much easier-and so it's done all the time-simply to include them all in the same list, as "pseudoscience." But this lumping also has disadvantages. ... [It] can backfire if even one of the unorthodox claims turns out to be valid, as some do. For decades there were those who decried as wasteful, or worse, the use of vitamin supplements, but they will (or should) have been mightily abashed when in 1998 the Institute of Medicine recommended such supplements even for people enjoying an apparently adequate diet.

          Debunking loses credibility when it calls "paranormal" or "supernatural" the search for such entirely material albeit as-yet-uncaptured species as the giant sloth .... Debunkers often cite their concern for public rationality and scientific literacy; but by their lack of discrimination, and by their doom-saying and exaggerated assertions of the harm that supposedly flows from what they call pseudoscience, they fail to practice the rationality and scientific approach they preach.

          57: pundits will insist that science is not characterized by always being right, or in any other particular result, but only in the process of using the scientific method. Yet when right results are obtained by people who flout the scientific method and other norms of science-as with high-temperature superconductors-their lapses are not criticized.

          58: There exist no reliable, accredited repositories or museums of ufology or cryptozoology, so specimens or artifacts mentioned in the literature often cannot be retrieved for reexamination.

          58-59: In anomalistics, where by definition the evidence is not utterly compelling, believers and debunkers are thereby free perpetually to reach opposing conclusions, to fit the evidence into their opposing stories. ... Concerning yeti or Bigfoot, and the fact that apemen are featured in folklore across the world, Bayanov has pointed out that ... "the existence of mythological hominoids is a necessary, though not sufficient condition, of the existence of real hominoids" (Bayanov, 1982). Their absence from folklore would even speak against the creature's existence, which is the opposite of the debunkers' usual argument.

          5 out of 5 stars Essential Reading For the True Skeptic.......2001-06-14

          For any skeptic willing to question their own foundations, this book is a must. Not only is it an excellent companion to the works of Michael Shermer and like-minded skeptics, it adds a much needed dose of reality to said skeptical works. It seems a vocal few have boldy proclaimed what science is and is not. H. Bauer provides a blueprint (along with his previous work Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method) for what "raw' science truly is, undiluted with politics or beliefs.

          5 out of 5 stars How Much We Don't Yet Know!.......2001-05-21

          To really grasp what is going on with Big Science and why there is such resistance to new ideas, you need a copy of Dr. Henry Bauer's Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phenomena and Other Heterodoxies published this year by the University of Illinois Press. Henry H. Bauer, Dean Emeritus of Arts & Sciences, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Science Studies Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, and the author of several other books like The Enigma of Loch Ness: Making Sense of a Mystery and Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method, which we recommend almost monthly to our listener and guests on ....

          The most original aspect of this book is the way that Dr. Bauer has of defining normal, revolutionary, premature, and "pseudo" science in terms of the three facets of data, method, and theory. He makes detailed comparisons of the actual working practices in natural science, social science, and denigrated science and reexamines notorious cases from this fresh perspective. Normal science doesn't try to do anything revolutionary in any of these three facets, according to Bauer. As he says, "Scientific "revolutions" (quantum mechanics, relativity) change only one of those at a time. Looking for novelty in two of the three simultaneously produces "premature" science: Mendel's theory of genetics, Wegener's theory of drifting continents - ignored or rejected by science for decades. Novelty in all three areas characterizes looking for Loch Ness Monsters or UFOs or studying psychic phenomena; the difficulties are enormous and the chances of success slight, but that doesn't make the quest useless or to be criticized."

          Some of our favorite subjects that have been dismissed as "pseudo science" are reexamined as "scientific" with this perspective, and Bauer relates the search for the giant squid, the search for extraterrestrials, pre-Clovis people in the Americas, cold fusion, the idea that HIV causes AIDS, and much more.

          Bauer is a humorous writer and acknowledges that his critics will probably not be able to keep from being nasty. He recommends that if the skeptics insist on being nasty, they should at least distinguish genuine knowledge-seekers from self-promoting confidence tricksters. As he points out, many cryptozoologists, parapsychologists, and ufologists are perfectly honest, genuine seekers of understanding (while some mainstream researchers are not very honest).

          For an unusually unbiased, yet scientific, approach to some of the subjects that are "borderland" respectable - sometimes called pseudo-science, sometimes admitted into science, but generally still controversial ("how much don't we yet know about electromagnetism and living processes! About archaeoastronomy!") you must read this book.
          Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phenomena, and Other Heterodoxies
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            Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phenomena, and Other Heterodoxies
            Henry H. Bauer
            Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
            ProductGroup: Book
            Binding: Paperback
            ASIN: B000OQ5EG0

            Books:

            1. American Academy of Pediatrics Baby and Child Health (American Academy of Pediatrics)
            2. And Baby Makes Three: The Six-Step Plan for Preserving Marital Intimacy and Rekindling Romance After Baby Arrives
            3. Babycare for Beginners
            4. Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families
            5. Bon Appetit, Baby! The Breastfeeding Kit
            6. Born Talking
            7. Breast Fitness: An Optimal Exercise and Health Plan for Reducing Your Risk of Breast Cancer
            8. Broken Toys Broken Dreams: Understanding and Healing Codependency, Compulsive Behaviors and Family
            9. Calm Birth: Empowering Preparation for Childbirth
            10. Child Abuse and Neglect: An Interdisciplinary Method of Treatment

            Books Index

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