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A visual and narrative history of popular ideas, phenomena, and widely held beliefs disproven by science from the authors of Quackery.
From the easily disproved to the wildly speculative, to straight-up hucksterism, Pseudoscience is a romp through much more than bad science—it’s a light-hearted look into why we insist on believing in things such as Big Foot, astrology, and the existence of aliens. Did you know, for example, that you can tell a person’s future by touching their butt? Rumpology. It’s a thing, but not really. Or that Stanley Kubrick made a fake moon landing film for the US government? Except he didn’t. Or that spontaneous human combustion is real? It ain’t, but it can be explained scientifically.
Pseudoscience is a wild mix of history, pop culture, and good old fashioned science—that not just entertains, but sheds a little light on why we all love to believe in things we know aren't true.
Lydia Kang
Lydia Kang is an associate professor of internal medicine and an award-winning and bestselling author of adult fiction, young adult fiction, and science nonfiction, including K-Jane, Opium and Absinthe, Star Wars: Cataclysm, The November Girl, and Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything.
More by Lydia Kang
Nate Pedersen
Nate Pedersen is a librarian, historian, and freelance journalist with over 400 publications in print and online, including in the Guardian, the Believer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Art of Manliness.
More by Nate Pedersen
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