CONTENTS

  1. Acknowledgments
  2. Introduction
  3. by Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis
  4. I.   MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN SCIENCE
  5.   Myth 1.  That There Was No Scientific Activity between Greek Antiquity and the Scientific Revolution
  6. Michael H. Shank
  7.   Myth 2.  That before Columbus, Geographers and Other Educated People Thought the Earth Was Flat
  8. Lesley B. Cormack
  9.   Myth 3.  That the Copernican Revolution Demoted the Status of the Earth
  10. Michael N. Keas
  11.   Myth 4.  That Alchemy and Astrology Were Superstitious Pursuits That Did Not Contribute to Science and Scientific Understanding
  12. Lawrence M. Principe
  13.   Myth 5.  That Galileo Publicly Refuted Aristotle’s Conclusions about Motion by Repeated Experiments Made from the Campanile of Pisa
  14. John L. Heilbron
  15.   Myth 6.  That the Apple Fell and Newton Invented the Law of Gravity, Thus Removing God from the Cosmos
  16. Patricia Fara
  17. II.   NINETEENTH CENTURY
  18.   Myth 7.  That Friedrich Wöhler’s Synthesis of Urea in 1828 Destroyed Vitalism and Gave Rise to Organic Chemistry
  19. Peter J. Ramberg
  20.   Myth 8.  That William Paley Raised Scientific Questions about Biological Origins That Were Eventually Answered by Charles Darwin
  21. Adam R. Shapiro
  22.   Myth 9.  That Nineteenth-Century Geologists Were Divided into Opposing Camps of Catastrophists and Uniformitarians
  23. Julie Newell
  24. Myth 10.  That Lamarckian Evolution Relied Largely on Use and Disuse and That Darwin Rejected Lamarckian Mechanisms
  25. Richard W. Burkhardt Jr.
  26. Myth 11.  That Darwin Worked on His Theory in Secret for Twenty Years, His Fears Causing Him to Delay Publication
  27. Robert J. Richards
  28. Myth 12.  That Wallace’s and Darwin’s Explanations of Evolution Were Virtually the Same
  29. Michael Ruse
  30. Myth 13.  That Darwinian Natural Selection Has Been “the Only Game in Town”
  31. Nicolaas Rupke
  32. Myth 14.  That after Darwin (1871), Sexual Selection Was Largely Ignored until Robert Trivers (1972) Resurrected the Theory
  33. Erika Lorraine Milam
  34. Myth 15.  That Louis Pasteur Disproved Spontaneous Generation on the Basis of Scientific Objectivity
  35. Garland E. Allen
  36. Myth 16.  That Gregor Mendel Was a Lonely Pioneer of Genetics, Being Ahead of His Time
  37. Kostas Kampourakis
  38. Myth 17.  That Social Darwinism Has Had a Profound Influence on Social Thought and Policy, Especially in the United States of America
  39. Ronald L. Numbers
  40. III.   TWENTIETH CENTURY
  41. Myth 18.  That the Michelson-Morley Experiment Paved the Way for the Special Theory of Relativity
  42. Theodore Arabatzis and Kostas Gavroglu
  43. Myth 19.  That the Millikan Oil-Drop Experiment Was Simple and Straightforward
  44. Mansoor Niaz
  45. Myth 20.  That Neo-Darwinism Defines Evolution as Random Mutation Plus Natural Selection
  46. David J. Depew
  47. Myth 21.  That Melanism in Peppered Moths Is Not a Genuine Example of Evolution by Natural Selection
  48. David W. Rudge
  49. Myth 22.  That Linus Pauling’s Discovery of the Molecular Basis of Sickle-Cell Anemia Revolutionized Medical Practice
  50. Bruno J. Strasser
  51. Myth 23.  That the Soviet Launch of Sputnik Caused the Revamping of American Science Education
  52. John L. Rudolph
  53. IV.   GENERALIZATIONS
  54. Myth 24.  That Religion Has Typically Impeded the Progress of Science
  55. Peter Harrison
  56. Myth 25.  That Science Has Been Largely a Solitary Enterprise
  57. Kathryn M. Olesko
  58. Myth 26.  That the Scientific Method Accurately Reflects What Scientists Actually Do
  59. Daniel P. Thurs
  60. Myth 27.  That a Clear Line of Demarcation Has Separated Science from Pseudoscience
  61. Michael D. Gordin
  62. Notes
  63. Contributors
  64. Index