Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness (Kodansha Globe)

Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness (Kodansha Globe)
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maybe a little out dated?

Eccentricity at Its Finest.

Their Own Drummers

Cheers to an ironic topic!

Eccentrics: Start Your Engines

Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness (Kodansha Globe)
David Weeks , and Jamie James
Manufacturer: Kodansha Globe
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1568361564

Amazon.com

This book summarizes findings from the first systematic study of "eccentrics": highly talented and unusual people who are somewhere between "normal" and "nuts". This is a domain occupied by genuine geniuses and charming crackpots whose common feature is that they refuse to hold commonly held beliefs or refuse to act in accordance with the norms of society. Although the book would have been a more compelling read if it treated each individual in more depth, and its conclusions more convincing if there were more tables of data, it is nonetheless a delightful book that will give you either more respect for the eccentric (if you believe that you are "normal") or greater confidence in yourself (if you suspect--or know--that you are eccentric). Recommended.

Book Description

A SCIENTIST LOOKS AT ECCENTRICS-AND THE ODDITIES THAT KEEP THEM SANE

After years of research, a practicing psychotherapist has proof that eccentrics are usually healthier than the rest of us-as well as more creative, more idealistic, more opinionated, and much more fun to read about. Dr. David Weeks fills his hook with fascinating case studies, including Joshua
Abraham Norton, who once proclaimed himself Emperor of America and even convinced many people to consider themselves his subjects: Dr. Patch Adams, founder of the Gesundheit Institute and a physician who believes that humor fosters healing and dresses as a clown to treat his patients; and Florence
Foster Jenkins, a would-be diva whose love of music was exceeded only by her lack of talent, but whose wealth enabled her to stage a recital at Carnegie Hall, Entertaining, funny, and thought provoking, Eccentrics introduces a series of extraordinary men and women-and encourages us to enjoy our own
healthy eccentricities as well.

Customer Reviews:

maybe a little out dated?.......2007-03-05

fun to read, it contains a lot of stories about some strange guys like the Emperor Norton, etc. and some other new guys that was fun to go after in the web. since the book is from the nineties it came from a time with a much more less internet and so maybe was not easily availble the common flood of weird facts and people we get today in our computers. nevertheless being also a little weird myself i was atracted to this book in the same spirit I went to all the Oliver Sacks' books, dealing with the last forms of strangeness, next to illness, but much more focused in how to deal with the handicap going into more normal lifes. it would be precious to understand this with the promised statistical data the author talk about not only in the back cover, but at every time, giving just glimpses of his research, and going again into the anecdotic part. so difficult to please everyone, maybe it was not thought as a cientifical research but just a divulgative report. But at the end one feels that something is missing and that would turn this book, research and doctor in the offspring of Dr. KInsey and Ripley, unfortunately didn't happened.

Eccentricity at Its Finest........2006-12-08

I dearly, dearly love this book. It was a wellspring of information about historical eccentricity and also the way 'outside the box' thinkers are and were perceived. The chapter about Emperor Norton was one of my favorites - I'm now a forever fan of the United States' shortlived existance as a monarchy.

The portraits of the individuals featured in the book are compassionate and wonderfully told. It's not at all a dry research tome, but is still full of wonderful information.

Their Own Drummers.......2006-05-10

As someone who could be politely described as marching to my own drummer, or more brutally as a social cripple, I was drawn to this book about eccentrics. Them's my people. According to David Weeks, eccentrics have never been studied scientifically before the research described here, because psychiatrists only ever study people with real illnesses or pathologies. Eccentrics also usually don't see themselves as being in need of help or as being eligible for study, so therefore they are mostly unknown to science. Another challenge is that the very term "eccentric" has been used inconsistently in different locations and time periods, with the oddballs being treated in every fashion from supportive reverence to outright persecution. Weeks thus embarked on a systematic study of people who called themselves eccentric, or folks who were deemed eccentric by the newly-derived criteria of the study.

However, this is not a very scientific book and the results of the study turn out to be conjectural conclusions and rhetorical questions. We do learn that eccentrics are healthier, both mentally and physically, than the general population; while Weeks provides some pretty good philosophical arguments on how those who flout social conventions have always kept society from getting moribund and inflexible, especially in the arts and sciences. But even though this is all good food for thought, this book (and probably Weeks' study in itself) doesn't reach any real conclusions about what makes eccentrics eccentric. Instead we mostly learn about what makes them just a little different, in healthy and not pathological ways. The book is generally fun to read, thanks to the many anecdotes about real eccentrics and their intriguing peculiarities (my personal favorite is the guy who gained a unique outlook on life by walking around backwards all the time), but even these enjoyable stories take on the aspect of a disconnected list, which further detracts from the scientific goals that Weeks announced at the beginning of the book. [~doomsdayer520~]

Cheers to an ironic topic!.......2006-04-11

For too long have the wrong people, who don't conform to the standards of the majority, been labeled as insane. I doubt most people will come close to understanding just how much more sane non-conformists can be. After reading this book, I can now understand why we eccentrics, who tend to not be so socially acceptable, are a happier and healthier lot. If you're like me, I've discovered the bulk of my block towards happiness stemmed from others' ignorance draped through my impressionistic eras of living. God bless these authors for getting this research work done and published!

Eccentrics: Start Your Engines.......2005-04-29

This book was great. It was lively, entertaining, spoke of past and present eccentrics and as somebody who cottons to the term "eccentric," this book delivered most of what I hoped it would.

The few objections I had to the book were the random clinical records tossed about in an attempt to distinguish if the persons in question were truly "eccentric" or "mentally ill." Here, I believe the author made a crucial mistake in that he blurred the line between eccentricity and mental illness, thus leaving the reader to wonder -"what's the difference?" or "Does eccentricity really exist?" This was mostly due, in part, to the clinical studie's failing to report significant differences between what groups the author deemed as "eccentric" vs. those who were "mentally ill."

All in all, though, I enjoyed this book and learned some things about some interesting people and that's why I purchased the book in the first place.

Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness. (book reviews): An article from: The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology

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Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness. (book reviews): An article from: The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology
Michael G. Kenny
Manufacturer: Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Assn.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, published by Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Assn. on May 1, 1997. The length of the article is 838 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness. (book reviews)
Author: Michael G. Kenny
Publication: The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology (Refereed)
Date: May 1, 1997
Publisher: Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Assn.
Volume: v34 Issue: n2 Page: p242(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Eccentrics: A study of sanity and strangeness

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Eccentrics: A study of sanity and strangeness
David Joseph Weeks
Manufacturer: Villard Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0006F54FA

Book Description

Sir Francis Younghusband was the last of the great imperialists—a dashing adventurer, who in 1903 single-handedly invaded Tibet, wiped out its entire army, and then became a mystic. Admired by H.G Wells and Bertrand Russell, he launched early assaults on Mt. Everest, held the world record for the 300-yard dash, was the first European since Marco Polo to travel from Peking to Central Asia, discovered the source of the Indus, and, as a spy, his presumed death nearly sparked an Indo-Russian war. The quest to discover this man led Patrick French from the Himalayas to Kashmir and into Tibet in search of clues.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Biography; So-So Subject.......2006-09-24

This is a worthy effort by a very able biographer. But, alas, I found the subject, Francis Younghusband, less than compelling. As Younghusband's life went on, he seeemed, like his biography, to get duller and duller. The details of his life in the Indian subcontinent and the Himalayas are superbly rendered, and anyone interested in "The Great Game", Tibet or India during the British Raj MUST read this book. For Younghusband was a major player in those events. The author also vividly conveys Britain's colonial environment of the time. But for me, as Younghusband entered the more mystical period of his life, he revealed himself as a dilettante. I think he just didn't know what to do with himself and just puttered around for the rest of his life. He was a very complex and conflicted man -- envious, I believe, of his more notable friends and associates. French paints a nice picture of this man and his times. But, in candor, beyond his Tibet adventures, he wasn't all that fascinating a character. However, at the end of the day, this is a book many will find worthwhile.

Warrior-Mystic or New Age Guru?.......2002-05-29

This book is an excellent achievement by a young British writer. Patrick French has meticulously researched all aspects of the life of this enigmatic 'empire builder'.

In the earlier stages of his life Francis Younghusband was desparately trying to gain fame and get his name into the annals of British imperialism. In a way time was running out, for the era of great explorations was coming to an end. Therefore the young officer set his eyes on the last frontier: Central Asia.

Very soon Younghusband was caught up in the hike-stake 'Great Game': the competition between Britain and Russia for control over the enormous expanses of inner Asia. Both states considered this region as vital for its strategic interests. The British feared that control of Turkestan and Tibet would bring the Russians too close to the mountain ranges separating India from the rest of Asia. The Russians in turn considered the steppes and deserts of Central Asia as a buffer zone between its Far Eastern territories and British-ruled South Asia.

Younghusband's travel experiences through the Himalayas, Karakorum, Hindu Kush and Pamir mountains would turn out to be essential for the formation of his later-day personality and activities. By temperament Younghusband fits into that strange category of the late Victorian soldier-adventurer with a spiritual bend. Just like General Charles 'Chinese' Gordon and T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), he paired a love for action with unmistakable spiritual inclinations.

After his military and administrative career in the British India service had come to an end, Francis Younghusband started a new mission in life. He became involved in a myriad of organizations concerned with inter-religious dialogue and the pursuit of world peace. Although, along the lines, he maintained a vivid interest in all 'things Asian' and was deeply involved with the first Mount Everest Expeditions.

French has been extremely thorough in investigating this second career of Francis Younghusband, pursuing all kinds of vague leads and intent on turning over the last stone. Patiently sifting through years of correspondence and personal journals, he pieces together a very detailed picture of Younghusband's later life and relationships with the people around him.

French's five year involvement with the life of Francs Younghusband was nothing short of an obsession, with the writer being determined to get into the head of his subject. The result is one of the best and most entertaining biographies I have ever read.

Great Content and Well Researched.......2002-01-27

The book traces the life of one of most intrepid explorers of fin-de-siecle 19th century, Sir Francis Edward Younghusband (FEY).

FEY was a man of many talents : explorer, writer, athlete, spy, thinker and philosopher. Born to English parents in `Imperial' India, FEY spent his early years at Dharamshala where he came under the influence of his maternal uncle Robert Shaw. Shaw was a keen adventurer and trekker himself which left a deep impact on the young FEY.

FEY started his career as an official of the British Empire and because of his treks to China (Gobi desert) and within India (Rohtang Pass) he became recognised as an explorer. At the turn of the century, Tibet remained one of the last uncontrolled regions in the 'Great Game' between Russia and Britain (for increasing their respective influences in the Asian region). Curzon, afraid of Russia's growing influence over Tibet (later proven unfounded), decided to send an 'expedition' to Lhasa headed by Younghusband. (Curzon and Younghusband were very good friends). The expedition was actually a military adventure to assert British influence over Tibet. In this most celebrated event of FEYs life, he along with British troops trekked from Sikkim to Lhasa and signed the Treaty of Lhasa which was responsible for Tibet coming under British influence (till the Chinese took it over much later on).

In the post-1904 phase of his life FEY tried, unsuccessfully, to enter politics. However, this physically-resilient explorer turned into a philosopher after he had a near-fatal accident in Belgium. He also led the `probably' unsuccessful attempts over Mt. Everest in the early-1920s (`probably' because till date the mystery over whether George Mallory did reach the summit in 1924 before perishing to his death remains unresolved).

The author also discusses in detail FEYs relationship with his wife Helen and daughter Eileen. PF also uncovers an affair FEY had in the twilight of his life with Lady Madeline Lees.

The book is also interspersed with details of how the author, Patrick French retraces Younghusband's steps. In true `living in his shoes' style, the author traces the travels / exploits of FEY. PF travels to Dharamshala, China, Gobi Desert and Sikkim to get a feel of Younghusband's travels. The research done by French on events of more than hundred years ago is commendable and extremely detailed. He even details the number (67) and type of shirts FEY took with him on his 1904 expedition !

Patrick French has also recently written `Liberty or Death' which is a lucid and well-researched account of the Indian Freedom struggle.

An wonderfully written life of a complex character.......2001-04-01

Patrick French's biography of Francis Younghusband - `the last great imperial adventurer' - is beautifully written, insightful and above all humane. I say humane because at first glance Younghusband could easily be ridiculed - in his youth for a reckless jingoism that cost lives and embarrassed the British government, and in his later years for a brand of religious mysticism that was, well, bordering on insane. It is a tribute to French's understanding of his subject that he digs beneath these criticisms to bring us a deeply satisfying portrait of a surprisingly complex man.

Frank Younghusband's most pressing claim on history was that he led the British expedition into Tibet in 1904 - even at the time seen as being based on a flimsy pretext of stopping Russia from gaining control of central Asia. Some 2000 Tibetans were killed as the British force made its way into Lhasa. Younghusband forced a treaty on the 13th Dalai Lama pledging loyalty to the British empire. The Government in London found this deeply embarrassing and almost immediately repudiated the treaty. Younghusband himself was convinced of the threat Russia presented to British interests in India and central Asia.

But while the expedition created popularity and profile in England, it finished any chances of a senior career with the civil service. Younghusband served in India in a number of middle-ranking posts and wrote books about Tibet and his earlier exploits as an explorer in central Asia. In 1906 he played a bit part in the Jamison raid in South Africa - in the pay of The Times. Most importantly Younghusband thought about spirituality. Literally following a mountain top revelation in Tibet, he increasingly devoted his life to promoting a form of all-embracing spirituality which led in its silliest form to speculations about aliens living on a planet called Altair. His later years were devoted to boosting this form of spirituality by establishing popular movements in England, lecturing widely including in the US, running the Royal Geographic Society and supporting Indian independence.

All of which one could easily ridicule. But French brings life to his subject and a subtlety of understanding which makes the book absolutely engrossing. One reason is that Younghusband was a prolific letter writer - the India Office Library contains 600 "bulging" boxes containing his papers. Through these we see into the private mental world of Francis - his arid and rather sad marriage to Helen, and the relationship in his very last years with Madeline Lees - truly the love of his life. These insights allow French to paint a much deeper and satisfying portrayal of a complex man - a person of his time and place but also a complete iconoclast, some one who pushed against the establishment for most of his life. Remarkably, this is Patrick French's first book, written in his mid-twenties. He is a natural, a gifted writer with a fine sense of judgement. No sentence rings out of tune in the whole book. In short Younghusband is worth every one of its five stars. If the publishers have any sense they will issue a reprint soon. If not, readers should do everything they can to somehow find a copy of this wonderful biography.

A reversal of viewpoint.......2000-09-15

Even more astonishing than the fact that Younghusband marched with bayonets to Lhasa, to convince Tibetans they must have no truck with the Russians, was the complete reversal of his political persepective a mere thirty years later. The result was the historical precedent of an arch imperialist striking camp to cross over to the opposition, becoming, in the process, a hero for Indian nationalists. Ironically the man responsible for the death of hundreds of Tibetans fighting for their freedom would today be a huge thorn in the side of China, had he survived to join their successors in their continuing cause. The contradictions in his character are beautifully and arrestingly captured by French, who has done a marvellous job of bringing this paradoxical enigma to life in a thoroughly entertaining manner. I can't believe this book is no longer in print. Books this good should never be out of print.

Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer

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Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer
Patrick French
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8TSFQ

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Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer
Patrick French
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8MIZS

The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science
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An excellent coverage of the Baltimore fraud case

Judson would be a demagogue, if he could get your attention.

Tendentious at best

Superficial, shallow, naive

Examining events, causes, and resolution processes

The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science
Horace Freeland Judson
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Betrayers of the truth

ASIN: 0151008779

Amazon.com

Horace Freeland Judson, author of The Eighth Day of Creation, eloquently examines the nature and causes of scientific fraud in The Great Betrayal. Although the process of science has built-in checks and balances such as peer review and paper refereeing, Judson calls these "moribund" and asks "whether in fact and to what extent science really is self-correcting." After all, success and good results are sometimes valued above all in science, especially by the agencies or corporations that provide the funding for research. Upon examining hundreds of cases of suspected scientific fraud, Judson answers blind praise of science's self-policing with the terse statement, "Their claims about science are unscientific."

To make his case, Judson begins with some of the giants of science: Mendel, Darwin, Pasteur, Freud. It turns out that each of these men fudged their data in one way or another, whether by omitting numbers that didn't fit desired results, or manipulating photographs, or not using experimental controls. Judson recognizes that there are difficulties in examining historical scientists' behavior through a modern lens, and he deals with the associated complexities by asking tough questions: What if their cheating led to a correct answer? Where is the line between intuition and lying?

The Great Betrayal goes on to describe enough modern cases of scientific fraud to leave readers reeling. The most damning revelations in the book are those showing how whistle-blowers are treated by the scientific establishment, and Judson's showcase for this is Margot O'Toole, who called for correction or retraction of a paper co-authored by noted biologist David Baltimore and was subsequently vilified for her actions. The so-called "Baltimore case" became one of the ugliest and most revealing controversies in late-20th-century science. In the end, Judson offers hope that science may become truly open through electronic publishing. Whether the free exchange of criticism offered by the Internet will refresh science remains to be seen, but without learning from its defects, Judson writes, this great endeavor will ultimately fail. --Therese Littleton

Book Description

Fraud permeates all types of institutions today and now the world of science, the last bastion of respect and trust, is no exception. Dozens of cases have been uncovered in the past quarter-century-and the headlines continue. We can no longer shrug off fraud in science as the work of aberrant individual scientists, Horace Freeland Judson argues. Instead, we must look for its causes and its remedies in the structures and cultures of the scientific institutions themselves. Judson carefully details all types of scientific fraud and how they happen; considers the self-government of the sciences, including peer review and the refereeing of papers; and exposes the failures of academic, governmental, and legal responses. He also shows how the movement toward Internet publication of papers promises remarkable new checks on fraud and suggests how we can restore and defend the integrity of the greatest monument of human endeavor- the sciences.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent coverage of the Baltimore fraud case.......2007-02-21

Judson has done an excellent job in exposing intellectual fraud in general ,as well as concentrating specifically on the attempt by David Baltimore to cover up the extremely shoddy,error filled work of a colleage,Imanishi-Kari.Baltimore had agreed to put his name on a paper that he had not read carefully,if at all. Margot O'Toole exposed the paper,showing that it was riddled with errors.Baltimore engaged in an attempted coverup ,believing that his great reputation,based on his being a Nobel Prize winner with a number of accomplishments ,would serve to sidetrack any call for the retraction of the paper.An excellent summary of this scientific fiasco is given on p.242 by Judson when he cites the final judgment of another Nobelist,the late Howard Temin:" David's misconduct was-When an experiment is challenged no matter who it is challenged by it's your responsibility to check...When you publish something you are responsible for it.And one of the great strengths of American science...is that even the most senior professor,if challenged by the lowliest technician or graduate student,is required to treat them seriously...It is one of the most fundamental aspects of science in America".
In fact,what Temin is stating is not just the most fundamental aspect of American science.Transparency,the requirement that results be checked and rechecked before the publication of an article in a scientific journal,is the most fundamental aspect of science.Error correction is a necessary condition for any field to be called "scientific ".Fields or disciplines that do not prevent or correct error filled articles from being published or that do not retract such articles once they are exposed ,like most social sciences,economics and psychology in particular,are not considered hard science.

Judson would be a demagogue, if he could get your attention........2006-01-03

I would have given this no stars if it were an option.

The first 20 pages of this book bored and insulted me. Judson drones on about every fraud known to mankind, but only occasionally scientific fraud. He seems to hope that if we hear enough examples of fraud in the world, we will get fired up and join him in a lynching.

His tone is condescending and assumes that you already agree with him. This is not the type of academician that you could hope to have a meaningful conversation with. He laces his information with references to "the epidemic" of fraud and nobody being "immune" to it, as if by the weight of these descriptive terms you will be swept into his inevitably correct conclusions. I suspect that Judson would have presented a more objective book if he had more worthwhile information to offer.

Tendentious at best.......2004-12-30

Judson is an academic manque who wrote an interesting if overly pretentious and self-agrandizing history of molecular biology. Unfortunately this book, which, as Judson states early on, could not find a publisher, would have been better left unpublished. This desultory history of scientific fraud simply rehearses what has been better said elswhere. The standard fraud cases - from Newton to Pasteur to Freud to Darsee to Baltimore - are given a superficial treatment. Especially egregious is the hatchet job on Baltimore and Imanashi-Kari. Anyone wanting to find out how shoddy and partisan his treatment of the later affair is ought to read the thoughtful and well researched "The Baltimore Case" by Daniel Kevles. Since Judson seems to regard himself as a purveyor of scientific ethics in a time of lapsing moral values in the scientific enterprise, one can only hope that the scientific community can protect themselves from such scrutiny. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes.

Superficial, shallow, naive .......2004-12-18

First of all, this is not really a book about fraud in science. The analysis of specific cases of scientific fraud is thin and focused mostly on procedural matters; actual science behind each case is almost completely missing from Judson's analysis. His analysis of fraud as a phenomenon is even more superficial. For all the 400-plus pages of pomp, he fails to look at the obvious: what drives scientists to work in science? A quick look at a randomly selected group of postgraduate students would have revealed that there is a very broad distribution of reasons, ranging from the very global (desire to better understand the surrounding reality) to practical (making a living), to idiosyncratic personal reasons (e.g., looking smart in the eyes of the opposite sex). Where there is a distribution of motivations, there will be a distribution of rules by which people play - including some people bending the rules unacceptably far. Sociology of science is probably as complex as of the society at large; and as in any complex group, fraud is unavoidable.

Which brings us to the second point. Judson's real reason for writing this book seems to be the critique of the ways by which science is funded and by which scientific publishing works. He uses the existence of fraud to attack the existing system of scientific publishing (formal, peer-reviewed, commercially run journals) and claims that a transition to an arXiv-style system will all but eliminate scientific fraud. Unfortunately, his arguments are thouroughly unconvincing. The way scientific results are reported and published may well have a second-order effect on the incidence of fraud, but it is hardly the determining factor of the latter. Risk-vs-benefit factors - what one has to gain by publishing high-profile papers - seems to have much more to do with the occurence of fraud. Because the scientific establishment is not a uniform, Mertonian-type system, there will always be cheaters. The only reason they have not used arXiv so far is that currently one has nothing to gain by submitting a fraudulent publication there. This would change as soon as arXiv became the primary mode of scientific publishing.

Judson's recipe seems to be based on an over-simplified, neo-positivist philosophy of science, with its inherent assumption that scientific community is an ideal, uniform collection of people without agendas, personal ambitions, or theories to prove - what one might call an "ideal-gas approximation" of the scientific community. This might be to a limited degree applicable to biomedical research, which consists largely of data mining, but it completely breaks down in natural sciences. His arguments for open publishing are thus largely ideologically driven, and in his push for the desired conclusion he contradicts both the logic and himself. Of known cases of fraud, how many were caught by people scrutinizing someone else's published papers? Perhaps 10%? Most were discovered by chance - by a postdoc digging up old lab books; a technician noticing dodgy practises; by historians going through old raw data; by an author accidentally coming across an article identical to his own. This seems to be Judson's conclusion as well. Why does he think that community-scrutinized arXiv publishing would be more self-correcting than peer-reviewed traditional publishing? Both logic and experience suggest otherwise. Peer review may be costly, awkward, and inefficient, but it does keep junk science in journals with impact factors <1 - which noone reads. Without it, scientific publishing will quickly become awash with self-posted garbage (for a proof, look at the percentage of garbage on the Internet - it's hardly lower than in published journals!) Judson evades this obvious fact by saying that even garbage papers eventually get published in peer-reviewed journals, conveniently omitting that in most cases they get published in journals which have no impact.

To be sure, the book does contain a few fresh ideas. The first couple of chapters provide a good discourse in the philosophy of science. Some ideas regarding ArXiv are also quite nice, as long as they are not presented as some magic bullet which will miraculously eliminate scientific fraud. But were these worth reading through 400 pages of naive populism written by someone who, by own admission, has never been a practising scientist? I'd say no.

Examining events, causes, and resolution processes.......2004-12-13

Science as a discipline is not immune to fraud, as Horace Freeland Judson demonstrates in his study The Great Betrayal: Fraud In Science. Judson is the former director of the center for History of Recent Science: his background lends to his survey of dozens of cases where scientific fraud and aberrant scientists have threatened the very reliability and foundations of the scientific process. Chapters chart cases of scientific self-government and cases which came to light, examining events, causes, and resolution processes.

Conduct unbecoming.(Scientists' Bookshelf)(The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science)(Book Review): An article from: American Scientist

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Conduct unbecoming.(Scientists' Bookshelf)(The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science)(Book Review): An article from: American Scientist

Manufacturer: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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"The Great Betrayal-Fraud in Science" [A book review from: DNA Repair]

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"The Great Betrayal-Fraud in Science" [A book review from: DNA Repair]
B.A. Bridges
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000RR6KPK

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from DNA Repair, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science
Horace Freeland Judson
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJGQDC

Book Description

All lovers of the mountains will welcome Verna Johnston's new and completely updated edition of her classic, Sierra Nevada, originally published in 1970. A professional biologist, veteran ornithologist, and well-known wildlife photographer, Johnston is the perfect guide for a natural-history trip into the Sierra. Regardless of how one explores the magnificent 400-mile-long mountain range, on foot or by car, in an armchair or a classroom, this is the book to have.
Beginning with the western foothills, Johnston evokes a vivid picture of the varied plant and animal life encountered as the elevation increases, tops the crest, and drops to the more precipitous, arid eastern Sierra slope. The reader is taken through chaparral and mountain meadows, pine and fir forests, granite expanses and snowy peaks. Johnston writes of the Native Americans' uses and stewardship of the land, the role of fire in forest ecology, the eras of sheep herders and loggers, the work of John Muir and other preservationists, and the battles to save Mono Lake and Lake Tahoe. Her lifetime of field experience and discovery offers intimate observations of rarely recorded events: the courtship of the Sierra Nevada salamander, a wolverine attacking two bears, a fight to the death between a skink and a scorpion.
Many changes have occurred in the Sierra since the first edition of this book was published, including acid snow, tensions involving human and cougar habitats, and an ominous drop in amphibian populations. Johnston documents these events and updates the ecological research in the rich, evocative writing style that makes her book a naturalist's treasure. This is a guide to the Sierra Nevada for the next millennium.

Sierra Nevada - Naturalist's Companion - Revised Edtion

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Sierra Nevada - Naturalist's Companion - Revised Edtion
Verna R. Johnston
Manufacturer: Univ. Of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000RJ0PW2

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