SUPERSTITION

This is an age of unprecedented scientific advance. However, superstitions, especially pseudo-scientific superstitions, are also advancing.

I welcome further candidates - creationism, new age, anti-nuke, anti-gmo, organic foods, extreme egalitarianism, perpetual motion machines, turning half the continent over to wildlife, post-modernism, primitive religions, etc

The scientific community is alert to only a few of them, and many scientists and engineers whose activities are not under attack don't court trouble by defending their colleagues.

Here are some examples.

1. Physicists used to defend nuclear energy. Now they don't bother even though they favor it sub rosa, i.e. in conversation that goes no further.
2. Most experimental psychologists avoid the study of human differences. They ignore the attacks on their colleagues who do.
3. Mostly the scientific community puts some effort into defending evolution from creationism, but I'm not sure this defense will last long if it begins to cause friction.
4. Companies like General Motors hold solar powered car contests even though they know that solar powered cars are only a stunt. The last solar powered car race was a disaster, because it was cloudy most of the time. As I understand it, the race was conducted in stages, and if a car didn't make it through a stage, it was transported by truck to the beginning of the next stage.
5. More to come.

Links to promoters of superstitions of all kinds.

RACHEL, alias Peter Montague

The Natural Step, vague eco-slogans of international significance and backing.

Creation Research Society

Send comments to jmc@cs.stanford.edu. I sometimes make changes suggested in them. - John McCarthy

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