Bad Astronomy by Philip Plait, John Wiley, £11.95, ISBN 0471409766
PSEUDOSCIENCE bombards us from every angle, mourns Philip Plait, an astronomer at Sonoma State University in California. He blames everyone from school boards that promote antiscience to ignorant sciencejournalists, as well as the Web that unwittingly globalises conspiracy theories in a flash. It’s little wonder, he says, that we struggle to distinguish fact from fantasy.
In Bad Astronomy, then, Plait sets out to “uproot those brain weeds and plant healthy greenery”. He sets lots of common misconceptions straight—that the Moon looks bigger when it’s close to the horizon, for instance,…
