Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction
by Kosias Kamponrakis 1
I Medieval and Early Modern Science
Myth 1 That There Was No Scientific Activity between Greek Antiquity and the Scientific Revolution
by Michael H. Shank 7
Myth 2 That before Columbus, Geographers and Other Educated People Thought the Earth Was Flat
by Lesley B. Cormack 16
Myth 3 That the Copernican Revolution Demoted the Status of the Earth
by Michael N. Keas 23
Myth 4 That Alchemy and Astrology Were Superstitious Pursuits That Did Not Contribute to Science and Scientific Understanding
by Lawrence M. Principe 32
Myth 5 That Galileo Publicly Refuted Aristotle's Conclusions about Motion by Repeated Experiments Made from the Campanile of Pisa
by John L. Heilbron 40
Myth 6 That the Apple Fell and Newton Invented the Law of Gravity, Thus Removing God from the Cosmos
by Patricia Para 48
II Nineteenth Century
Myth 7 That Friedrich Wohler's Synthesis of LTrea in 1828 Destroyed Vitalism and Gave Rise to Organic Chemistry
by Peter J. Ramberg 59
Myth 8 That William Paley Raised Scientific Questions about Biological Origins That Were Eventually Answered by Charles Darwin
by Adam R. Shapiro 67
Myth 9 That Nineteenth-Century Geologists Were Divided into Opposing Camps of Catastrophists and Uniformitarians
by Julie Newell 74
Myth 10 That Lamarckian Evolution Relied Largely on Use and Disuse and That Darwin Rejected Lamarckian Mechanisms
by Richard W. Burkhardt Jr. 80
Myth 11 That Darwin Worked on His Theory in Secret for Twenty Years, His Fears Causing Him to Delay Publication
by Robert J. Richards 88
Myth 12 That Wallace's and Darwin's Explanations of Evolution Were Virtually the Same
by Michael Ruse 96
Myth 13 That Darwinian Natural Selection Has Been "the Only Game in Town"
by Nicolaas Rupke 103
Myth 14 That after Darwin (1871), Sexual Selection Was Largely Ignored until Robert Trivers (1972) Resurrected the Theory
by Erika Lorraine Milam 112
Myth 15 That Louis Pasteur Disproved Spontaneous Generation on the Basis of Scientific Objectivity
by Garland E. Allen 119
Myth 16 That Gregor Mendel Was a Lonely Pioneer of Genetics, Being Ahead of His Time
by Kostas Kampourakis 129
Myth 17 That Social Darwinism Has Had a Profound Influence on Social Thought and Policy, Especially in the United States of America
by Ronald L. Numbers 139
III Twentieth Century
Myth 18 That the Michelson-Morley Experiment Paved the Wav for the Special Theory of Relativity
by Kostas Gavroglu 149
Myth 19 That the Millikan Oil-Drop Experiment Was Simple and Straightforward
by Mansoor Niaz 157
Myth 20 That Neo-Darwinism Defines Evolution as Random Mutation Plus Natural Selection
by David J. Depew 164
Myth 21 That Melanism in Peppered Moths Is Not a Genuine Example of Evolution by Natural Selection
by David W. Rudge 171
Myth 22 That Linus Pauling's Discovery of the Molecular Basis of Sickle-Cell Anemia Revolutionized Medical Practice
by Bruno J. Strasser 178
Myth 23 That the Soviet Launch of Sputnik Caused the Revamping of American Science Education
by John L. Rudolph 186
IV Generalizations
Myth 24 That Religion Has Typically Impeded the Progress of Science
by Peter Harrison 195
Myth 25 That Science Has Been Largely a Solitary Enterprise
by Kathryn M. Olesko 202
Myth 26 That the Scientific Method Accurately Reflects What Scientists Actually Do
by Daniel R Thurs 210
Myth 27 That a Clear Line of Demarcation Has Separated Science from Pseudoscience
by Michael D. Gordin 219
Notes 227
Contributors 271
Index 279