[疑似科学]とは何かという問題に取り組む哲学的・歴史的試みを探求します。実際のところ、疑似科学と科学を選別する単純な基準を打ち出すことは不可能であることが証明されています。気候変動やワクチン接種の否定・反対運動にしても、あらゆる側面から「疑似科学」の主張がなされているのです。そこで本書では超心理学（ESP）、ルイセンコ論争、科学的人種差別、錬金術などを取り上げ、疑似科学の主張を理解することで、過去から現在に至るまで科学がどのように機能してきたかを探ります。何が科学で何はそうではないかを定義しようとする争いが、どう変化してきたかを観察し、科学的区分の問題に対する理解を深めていきます。
 

• Offers both a philosophical and historical analysis of the phenomenon of pseudoscience
• Provides a survey of what has been labeled pseudoscience over the centuries
• Addresses contemporary issues in fringe science such as the anti-vaccination movement and climate change denial
• Examines astrology, phrenology, parapsychology (ESP), creationism, Lysenkoism, scientific racism, and alchemy, among others

        
Everyone has heard of the term "pseudoscience," typically used to describe something that looks like science, but is somehow false, misleading, or unproven. Many would be able to agree on a list of things that fall under its umbrella - astrology, phrenology, UFOlogy, creationism, and eugenics might come to mind. But defining what makes these fields “pseudo” is a far more complex issue. It has proved impossible to come up with a simple criterion that enables us to differentiate pseudoscience from genuine science. Given the virulence of contemporary disputes over the denial of climate change and anti-vaccination movements - both of which display allegations of “pseudoscience” on all sides - there is a clear need to better understand issues of scientific demarcation.
   
Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction explores the philosophical and historical attempts to address this problem of demarcation. This book argues that by understanding doctrines that are often seen as antithetical to science, we can learn a great deal about how science operated in the past and does today. This exploration raises several questions: How does a doctrine become demonized as pseudoscientific? Who has the authority to make these pronouncements? How is the status of science shaped by political or cultural contexts? How does pseudoscience differ from scientific fraud?
    
Michael D. Gordin both answers these questions and guides readers along a bewildering array of marginalized doctrines, looking at parapsychology (ESP), Lysenkoism, scientific racism, and alchemy, among others, to better understand the struggle to define what science is and is not, and how the controversies have shifted over the centuries. Pseudoscience: A Very Short Introduction provides a historical tour through many of these fringe fields in order to provide tools to think deeply about scientific controversies both in the past and in our present.