Chapter 15 Summary and Reflection

     In chapter 15, Kean introduces pathological science into the mix. He starts by talking about William Crookes. Crookes lost his brother Philip at sea and his life changed after that. Crookes and his family were delirious with grief. They turned to spiritualism to express their grief. The family began attending séances en masse. At first, Crookes didn't attend, but when he attended one night, his life took a turn. Crookes became a frequent attendee of the séances in order to try and communicate with his brother. His professional life took a hit when he published "Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena Called Spiritual" in 1874. People who he worked with thought he was crazy, but the pathological science had come in place by then. Crookes's emotions and feelings had come to affect his work and influenced his research on spiritualism. Crookes eventually left the spiritualism circles and went back to science and focused on other topics.

     Another topic deriving from pathological science was that of cold fusion. According to the author B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann were supposed to be the next Watson and Crick, but that didn't happen. Cold fusion was supposed to be the new source of energy that was efficient and without any emissions. Pons and Fleischmann discovered this new power source and ran many of the same experiments to confirm their results. Each of their tests didn't have the same results and even though they knew this, both men called for a press conference to release their new discovery. Cold fusion caught very big attention as it could mean a very big change for the sources of power. Cold fusion turned out to be a fraud and the names Pons and Fleischmann now bring attention to the failure of cold fusion.

     This chapter introduced to a broader version of pathological science. I always thought that anything considered pathological science wasn't a real science. In a way it kind of is, but reading about people like Crookes, Pons, and Fleischmann helped me realize that there is some truth to pathological science and that emotions tend to rule over the hard science. It would have been cool if cold fusion had worked out, for there wouldn't be so much emissions that come from coal power sources. All in all, this chapter was an interesting read although it was sometimes confusing.