Against the Tide: A Critical Review by Scientists of How Physics and Astronomy Get Done | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Universal Publishers
Category: EBooks
List Price: $9.00
Buy New: $7.20
You Save: $1.80 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 25931
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 268
Dewey Decimal Number: 530
ASIN: B0019WP4EK
Publication Date: May 20, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Nobody should have a monopoly of the truth in this universe. The censorship and suppression of challenging ideas against the tide of mainstream research, the blacklisting of scientists, for instance, is neither the best way to do and filter science, nor to promote progress in the human knowledge. The removal of good and novel ideas from the scientific stage is very detrimental to the pursuit of the truth. There are instances in which a mere unqualified belief can occasionally be converted into a generally accepted scientific theory through the screening action of refereed literature and meetings planned by the scientific organizing committees and through the distribution of funds controlled by "club opinions". It leads to unitary paradigms and unitary thinking not necessarily associated to the unique truth. This is the topic of this book: to critically analyze the problems of the official (and sometimes illicit) mechanisms under which current science (physics and astronomy in particular) is being administered and filtered today, along with the onerous consequences these mechanisms have on all of us. Apart from the editors, Juan Miguel Campanario, Brian Martin, Wolfgang Kundt, J. Marvin Herndon, Marian Apostol, Halton C. Arp, Tom Van Flandern, Andrei P. Kirilyuk, Dmitri Rabounski and Henry H. Bauer, all of them professional researchers, reveal a pessimistic view of the miseries of the actual system, while a glimmer of hope remains in the "leitmotiv" claim towards the freedom in doing research and attaining an acceptable level of ethics in science.
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| Customer Reviews:
A classic July 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book presents perhaps the greatest scientific discovery so far of the 21st century - that the institution of science as of 2008 is beginning to look more and more like a combination of an organized religion and a totalitarian government, in which those who are loyal to the faith and party are rewarded with money and honors and who question the faith or party are excommunicated and sent to Cyberia (the cyberspace version of the Siberia of the old Soviet Union). I predict that this book will be studied as a classic for many years to come, and I commend its authors for having the courage to speak out about this important matter.
Hold your breath April 5, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The public is staked out on the beach, with the rising tide about to drown the trapped! Are you bored with today's "Press Release" Science news? Wonder why that is just about all the public is given? This book gives, in impressive detail, the reasons for this scandalous treatment of new knowledge. Politicians, in cahoots with sequestered socialists/collegians have enjoyed a cozy, non-productive business: monetary grants, political plaudits, exclusion for non-conforming scientists, dumbing-down of the public via "Press Release" Science broadcast and/or published by news media outlets staffed by Science-ignorant reporters. The numerous chapters, all penned by real and financially vulernable researchers in Europe and North America confronting a corrupted international R&D system,deftly outline the startling organizational flaws of that unproductive R&D system. The public pays with taxes but gets a very poor quality, very often exceeding impractical, R&D product. The authors are excellent writers, know their various topics in superb detail, and are generous in giving the reader true insights. An informed public can demand a better R&D product! This book is a rarity on a complex and little-noticed---so far---aspect of modern-day life in a changing world that increasingly finds great survival and prosperity need for Science.
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