An explosion in the popularity and variety and availability of inexpensive paperback books, beginning around 1950, also led to an explosive growth of paperback books on pseudoscience and general crackpottery. There was little or no response to this wave of nonsense within the educational systems of the time. Nor did there appear any books debunking such pseudoscience claims, aimed at the general public, other than a few published by professional magicians, such as Milbourne Christopher and James Randi. Science writer and magician Martin Gardner led the pack, publishing such a book as early as 1952.

GARDNER

CHRISTOPHER

RANDI

The attitude of almost all scientists of the day toward the rise of pseudoscience was that it should simply be ignored. The feeling was that if any well-known scientist spoke out against any particular pseudoscience, the media would instead frame the situation as “Famous scientist ________ is taking _________ very seriously, and studying it scientifically.”

Things began to change in the 1970s.  In 1974, famous physicist Richard Feynman gave a commencement address at Caltech, titled “Cargo Cult Science,” in which he discussed and dismissed a number of topics in pseudoscience and flawed science in general. Shortly thereafter, Feynman's former major professor, John Archibald Wheeler, spoke at a 1979 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), asking it to expel parapsychology, which had been admitted ten years earlier at anthropologist Margaret Mead's request. He called it a pseudoscience, explaining that he did not oppose earnest research into such questions, but thought the “air of legitimacy” conferred by having an AAAS affiliation should be reserved until convincing tests of at least a few so-called psi effects could be demonstrated.  The fact that the media of the day more or less reported these events accurately encouraged more and more scientists to speak out about the nonsense that those media themselves were simultaneously shamelessly promoting.

FEYNMAN

WHEELER

One response was the creation, all over the US, of a number of university-level courses applying critical thinking to the claims of various pseudosciences. These courses were almost invariably taught in university philosophy or psychology departments. To the best of my knowledge, this course, Physics 341 Pseudoscience, is the only such course that has ever been taught in a physics department. It was first taught in the fall of 1980, as an upper-division science class aimed at liberal arts students (who were then required to take one such course). I received strong encouragement from Wheeler, who was on the faculty here from 1976 to 1986.  In those days the class filled Painter 2.48, which then had 178 seats. Eventually I was asked to teach the class in both Fall and Spring semesters, which of course instantly cut the enrollment in half, to about 75 - 80 students. Inevitably, the College of Liberal Arts did away entirely with science requirements, and at that point the enrollment per year dropped to about 30, with almost all students being in the College of Natural Sciences. I last taught the course in the Fall of 2013, with an enrollment of about 25. I was also burned out after 33 years of regularly teaching those topics. The University then changed web servers, which resulted in all the on-line material for the class being lost. But in the summer of 2023 the Department Chairman called me in and requested me to resume teaching the class at least once per year. I necessarily created an entirely new course that was first taught in the Fall of 2023. It had an enrollment of 5 students.  And here we are again.

An extremely important philosophy class on pseudoscience was taught for many years by Prof. Robert T. Carroll.  He also created a web site devoted entirely to entries commenting rationally on a huge spectrum of pseudosciences.  Although he died of cancer in 2016, his incredibly valuable web site is still preserved, although new entries are of course no longer being added.   Here at UT, for the past few years, another course on pseudoscience has been taught once per year by Prof. Jacqueline D. Woolley of the Department of Psychology. Her class is UGS 302 • Why We Believe Weird Things.

If there were ever any “battle” between science and pseudoscience, that battle has been won fairly decisively by pseudoscience, as we speak today in January 2026. It is particularly sad to contemplate that the weapons that won the war--- the internet, the world wide web, the web page, the web browser and e-mail--- were all developed by scientists to facilitate rapid communication among themselves. It was a set of tools almost instantly turned against not just science, but all fact-based discourse!