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MARCH, 1997

B+

Bad Science
https://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadScience.html

B+ CONTENT:
Citations and references to "bad science" taught in schools and elsewhere.

B AESTHETICS:
Minimal graphics, wide text.

B+ ORGANIZATION:
References are divided into branches of science, easy to locate.

REVIEW:
This page is put out by Alistair B. Fraser (a Professor of Meteorology at the Pennsylvania State University with a Ph.D. in Meteorology from the Imperial College of the University of London). His mission in publishing this site is "an attempt to sensitize teachers and students to examples of the bad science often taught in schools, universities, and offered in popular articles and even textbooks". The author defines Bad Science as "well understood phenomena which are persistently presented incorrectly by teachers and writers, presumably because they either do not know any better or because they don't really care enough to get it correct." The author also stresses that the page does not cover scientific debatable issues nor psuedo-sciences (subject matters non-traditionally scientific but which understand the scientific method). The areas covered so far by the website are: Bad Astronomy, Bad Chemistry, Bad Meteorology, Bad Physics and Recurring Science Misconceptions. The author invites input from viewers and wishes to expand the site into other brances of science. It's a refreshing idea and worth exploring.