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I was a bad pornographer
What a shock it was to discover I didn't have a clue how to write dirty prose.
By Fiona Maazel
[03/15/00]

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"Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People" by John Conroy
Why do torturers torture? An author goes in search of answers.
By Patricia Kean
[03/15/00]

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"Use Me" by Elissa Schappell
A disarming debut collection tracks a woman's life from teenage passion to grown-up grief.
By Stephanie Zacharek
[03/14/00]

Brotherly love
Dave Eggers' memoir, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," has charms to break the Savage heart.
By Dan Savage
[03/14/00]

Ivory Tower
Trading places
When traditionally privileged professors are the campus minority, they turn into white panthers.
By Michael Alvear
[03/13/00]

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Among scientists, opinion is sharply divided as to whether Park helps or hinders the cause, since his outspokenness frequently offends powers that be in Washington even as it garners coveted media attention. Since many scientists rely on federal funding, Park's bombastic style worries some researchers. In fact, the American Physical Society requires him to include a disclaimer at the end of his electronic newsletter, which nonetheless bears the inimitable Park imprint: "Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the APS, but they should be."

Nor does his brash, highhanded approach always appeal to members of the general public, many of whom perceive him as an arrogant know-it-all poking fun at the public's expense, particularly when he targets alternative medicine, which now has its own branch at the National Institutes of Health, thanks to congressional influence. But in "Voodoo Science," Park proves himself to be more than just a snide spoilsport intent on pissing on everyone's parade. Snappy sound bites might help bring science into the spotlight, but Park's ultimate objective is nothing less than a revolution in public thinking: imparting a sense of healthy skepticism to enable us to recognize bad science.

Consider the long and colorful history of free-energy schemes, which date from 1618, when a London physician named Robert Fludd tried to adapt a waterwheel into a perpetual-motion machine. His modern-day counterpart is Joe Newman, a backwoods mechanic from Lucedale, Miss., who claims to have invented an energy machine that operates on similar principles. Unfortunately for Fludd and Newman, such schemes violate the laws of thermodynamics, which dictate that friction and gravity prevent an object from spinning indefinitely -- a fact so widely accepted that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office generally rejects applications for perpetual-motion machines outright.

But like the medieval alchemists who devoted their lives to turning base metal into gold, such men continue to pursue the pipe dream of an unlimited source of energy. Park knows of at least three companies doing business in this country that claim to have developed infinite-energy devices, bilking millions of dollars out of starry-eyed investors. Inevitably, the inventors seek to silence detractors by likening themselves to Newton or Galileo: scientific geniuses ahead of their time who are thwarted by a closed scientific establishment.

Despite its reputation for skepticism, the media frequently contributes to the proliferation of pseudoscience, sometimes fanning the flames of public hysteria. Conspiracy fears were at the center of the decade-long power line scare, based on a 1989 series of articles in the New Yorker by investigative reporter Paul Brodeur that asserted that prolonged exposure to the electromagnetic fields of power lines caused cancer in those unfortunate enough to live near them. Brodeur made a convincing case, drawing on the findings of an early study (now widely acknowledged as flawed because the number of subjects was limited) and circumstantial, anecdotal evidence.

While anecdotes make for powerful journalism, they are not sufficient to establish a link in a scientific study. Unlike the link between cigarettes and cancer, which has been repeatedly borne out by a multitude of studies, a series of comprehensive double-blind studies found no evidence of a similar link between power lines and cancer.

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