Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Medieval and Early Modern Science
Myth 1. That There Was No Scientific Activity between Greek Antiquity and the Scientific Revolution
Understanding the Myth
Translation as a Symptom of Curiosity
Myth 2. That before Columbus, Geographers and Other Educated People Thought the Earth Was Flat
Myth 3. That the Copernican Revolution Demoted the Status of the Earth
The Great Copernican Cliché
The Copernican Demotion Myth Grows
The Great Copernican Equivocation
Myth 4. That Alchemy and Astrology Were Superstitious Pursuits That Did Not Contribute to Science and Scientific Understanding
Myth 5. That Galileo Publicly Refuted Aristotle’s Conclusions about Motion by Repeated Experiments Made from the Campanile of Pisa
Myth 6. That the Apple Fell and Newton Invented the Law of Gravity, Thus Removing God from the Cosmos
The Apple Myth
The No-God Fallacy
Fruit of Genius
Part II. Nineteenth Century
Myth 7. That Friedrich Wöhler’s Synthesis of Urea in 1828 Destroyed Vitalism and Gave Rise to Organic Chemistry
Unified Chemistry?
The Demise of Vitalism?
Reasons for Endurance
Myth 8. That William Paley Raised Scientific Questions about Biological Origins That Were Eventually Answered by Charles Darwin
Myth 9. That Nineteenth-Century Geologists Were Divided into Opposing Camps of Catastrophists and Uniformitarians
Myth 10. That Lamarckian Evolution Relied Largely on Use and Disuse and That Darwin Rejected Lamarckian Mechanisms
Myth 11. That Darwin Worked on His Theory in Secret for Twenty Years, His Fears Causing Him to Delay Publication
Myth 12. That Wallace’s and Darwin’s Explanations of Evolution Were Virtually the Same
Myth 13. That Darwinian Natural Selection Has Been “the Only Game in Town”
Myth 14. That after Darwin (1871), Sexual Selection Was Largely Ignored until Robert Trivers (1972) Resurrected the Theory
Myth 15. That Louis Pasteur Disproved Spontaneous Generation on the Basis of Scientific Objectivity
Myth 16. That Gregor Mendel Was a Lonely Pioneer of Genetics, Being Ahead of His Time
Myth 17. That Social Darwinism Has Had a Profound Influence on Social Thought and Policy, Especially in the United States of America
Part III. Twentieth Century
Myth 18. That the Michelson-Morley Experiment Paved the Way for the Special Theory of Relativity
Myth 19. That the Millikan Oil-Drop Experiment Was Simple and Straightforward
From Pith Balls to Water Droplets to Oil Droplets
Controversies
The Oil-Drop Experiment in Textbooks and Laboratories
Myth 20. That Neo-Darwinism Defines Evolution as Random Mutation Plus Natural Selection
Myth 21. That Melanism in Peppered Moths Is Not a Genuine Example of Evolution by Natural Selection
Myth 22. That Linus Pauling’s Discovery of the Molecular Basis of Sickle-Cell Anemia Revolutionized Medical Practice
Pauling’s Myth about “Molecular Medicine”
Conclusion
Myth 23. That the Soviet Launch of Sputnik Caused the Revamping of American Science Education
Part IV. Generalizations
Myth 24. That Religion Has Typically Impeded the Progress of Science
Myth 25. That Science Has Been Largely a Solitary Enterprise
Myth 26. That the Scientific Method Accurately Reflects What Scientists Actually Do
Myth 27. That a Clear Line of Demarcation Has Separated Science from Pseudoscience
Notes
Contributors
Index