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Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion
At 1:00 P.M., on March 23, 1989, two obscure scientists at the University of Utah announced that they had discovered salvation in a test tube - cold nuclear fusion. The technology promised sale, cheap, limitless energy, and the press played it as the scientific breakthrough of the century. It would become instead a fiasco of epidemic proportions, an unforgettable morality tale in the scientific method: what happens when reason is perverted by hope and greed. Gary Taubes's Bad Science is the vivid, dramatic, and definitive story of the astonishing quest for cold fusion, from its premature birth in a Utah turf war to its lingering and surreal death in a laboratory in College Station, Texas. It is the story of good scientists and bad, of heroes and charlatans, and of a race in which thousands of researchers spent tens of millions of dollars to prove or disprove the existence of a canard. Drawing from interviews with over 260 scientists, administrators, and journalists, Taubes dissects the cold fusion episode with wit and clarity, tracing the untold inside story of scientific research gone awry and academic politics out of control: from the devout physicist and his Department of Energy funding agent who set the wheels of the fiasco in motion, to the University of Utah president whose sole dream was to turn his institution into an intellectual powerhouse. Taubes unveils the darker side of science, where politics, ambition, and misguided obsession can corrupt its ethics and its purpose. Bad Science is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how science functions and what can happen when the scientific method is jettisoned in the pursuit of wealth and glory. As a story of morality, philosophy, and pathology, it is destined to become a classic of science journalism.
503 pages, Hardcover
First published June 15, 1993
About the author
Gary Taubes
23 books741 followersGary Taubes is an American science writer. He is the author of Nobel Dreams (1987), Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993), and Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), titled The Diet Delusion (2008) in the UK and Australia. His book Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It was released in December 2010. In December 2010 Taubes launched a blog at GaryTaubes.com to promote the book's release and to respond to critics. His main hypothesis is based on: Carbohydrates generate insulin, which causes the body to store fat.
Taubes studied applied physics at Harvard University (BS, 1977) and aerospace engineering at Stanford University (MS, 1978). After receiving a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1981, Taubes joined Discover magazine as a staff reporter in 1982. Since then he has written numerous articles for Discover, Science and other magazines. Originally focusing on physics issues, his interests have more recently turned to medicine and nutrition.
Taubes's books have all dealt with scientific controversies. Nobel Dreams takes a critical look at the politics and experimental techniques behind the Nobel Prize-winning work of physicist Carlo Rubbia. Bad Science is a chronicle of the short-lived media frenzy surrounding the Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion experiments of 1989. [wikipedia]
Taubes studied applied physics at Harvard University (BS, 1977) and aerospace engineering at Stanford University (MS, 1978). After receiving a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1981, Taubes joined Discover magazine as a staff reporter in 1982. Since then he has written numerous articles for Discover, Science and other magazines. Originally focusing on physics issues, his interests have more recently turned to medicine and nutrition.
Taubes's books have all dealt with scientific controversies. Nobel Dreams takes a critical look at the politics and experimental techniques behind the Nobel Prize-winning work of physicist Carlo Rubbia. Bad Science is a chronicle of the short-lived media frenzy surrounding the Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion experiments of 1989. [wikipedia]
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 18, 2019
5 stars - with caveats. I don't think this book would be for everyone and it's not perfect but I CANNOT in good conscience rate it the same as Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup because these two books are not even on the same planet as each other when it comes to quality. It is a masterwork of science journalism. Slow clap, standing ovation. GA-RY, GA-RY, GA-RY!
This book was written in the early 90's so I'm not sure how long it's been out of print, but likely a while since there are a very low number of Goodreads reviews and I couldn't find a copy in the entire Saskatchewan public library system. Luckily the University still had an old original copy up in the stacks, which I got on my sweet sweet grad student 6 month loan, which is necessary because it took me a full month to read it and my husband is next in line. I am kind of surprised that it's not still being printed though because a) Gary Taubes is still a fairly popular author, even though he has transitioned to a nutrition focus and b) I think the story and lessons learned are still extremely relevant. But who knows - maybe it was just too technical to sell well in the first place? Maybe it would almost be too political in this day and age to rehash a story of how easy it is for prominent scientists to get sucked in by bad science? I don't know, but I'm glad I was able to get my hands on a copy.
I went into this knowing nothing about the cold fusion affair, which I'm not sure was good or bad - it might have been helpful to have a tiny idea of what transpired in the big picture. The book is divided into three parts - as I'll describe them, Part 1 is "what actually happened before the press conference", Part 2 is "the scientific community whips itself into a frenzy over sloppy interpretations of results", and Part 3 is "beating a dead horse." Part 1 is kind of slow moving, with longer chapters, and it was the most difficult part to get through. Parts 2 and 3 were divided into much shorter chunks and faster moving. The writing is Gary Taubes at his finest - DETAIL, DETAIL, DETAIL. Too much detail though? Maybe, but I am happy to let Gary do his thing. He did all the research and all the interviews and he deserved to go nuts on this book. I feel like I get Gary. When I do a ridiculous amount of research on something I can get over-detailed about it too. I honestly don't know though - if you don't have at least an introductory background into nuclear physics if a lot of this book will go over your head. I felt it might have if I didn't have the background.
I began to understand toward the end that Gary was covering pieces of this story/scandal for Science magazine, but he didn't mention it except once toward the end. I would have liked to hear a bit more about his personal involvement, or if he'd used some active voice. Though, I understand it's only been recently that scientists have been more encouraged to use active voice in publications so for a 25+ year old book this is probably the style of the time. And even though he didn't really insert himself in an active way into the story, the writing wasn't dry, his opinions shone through where necessary, and he used an appropriate amount of humour.
Bad Science is a cautionary tale about what can happen if ego goes unchecked, scientists don't adopt an interdisciplinary approach, and the media reports on scientific discoveries without knowing how to critically appraise the results. My jaw dropped several times while reading, and I just kept thinking "I'm only _ way through, HOW CAN THIS GET WORSE??" I'd love to see it reprinted as an updated edition with a forward and afterward for modern times. If that doesn't happen though, and you want to get down into the weeds with a masterful science journalist, do your best to track down a used copy because Gary deserves some ongoing appreciation for his effort.
And after you finish, lighten things up by searching for a RTF copy of Cold Fusion The Musical by former Edmonton comedy group Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. The second act is off the rails but the first act is a very fun way to relive the story.
This book was written in the early 90's so I'm not sure how long it's been out of print, but likely a while since there are a very low number of Goodreads reviews and I couldn't find a copy in the entire Saskatchewan public library system. Luckily the University still had an old original copy up in the stacks, which I got on my sweet sweet grad student 6 month loan, which is necessary because it took me a full month to read it and my husband is next in line. I am kind of surprised that it's not still being printed though because a) Gary Taubes is still a fairly popular author, even though he has transitioned to a nutrition focus and b) I think the story and lessons learned are still extremely relevant. But who knows - maybe it was just too technical to sell well in the first place? Maybe it would almost be too political in this day and age to rehash a story of how easy it is for prominent scientists to get sucked in by bad science? I don't know, but I'm glad I was able to get my hands on a copy.
I went into this knowing nothing about the cold fusion affair, which I'm not sure was good or bad - it might have been helpful to have a tiny idea of what transpired in the big picture. The book is divided into three parts - as I'll describe them, Part 1 is "what actually happened before the press conference", Part 2 is "the scientific community whips itself into a frenzy over sloppy interpretations of results", and Part 3 is "beating a dead horse." Part 1 is kind of slow moving, with longer chapters, and it was the most difficult part to get through. Parts 2 and 3 were divided into much shorter chunks and faster moving. The writing is Gary Taubes at his finest - DETAIL, DETAIL, DETAIL. Too much detail though? Maybe, but I am happy to let Gary do his thing. He did all the research and all the interviews and he deserved to go nuts on this book. I feel like I get Gary. When I do a ridiculous amount of research on something I can get over-detailed about it too. I honestly don't know though - if you don't have at least an introductory background into nuclear physics if a lot of this book will go over your head. I felt it might have if I didn't have the background.
I began to understand toward the end that Gary was covering pieces of this story/scandal for Science magazine, but he didn't mention it except once toward the end. I would have liked to hear a bit more about his personal involvement, or if he'd used some active voice. Though, I understand it's only been recently that scientists have been more encouraged to use active voice in publications so for a 25+ year old book this is probably the style of the time. And even though he didn't really insert himself in an active way into the story, the writing wasn't dry, his opinions shone through where necessary, and he used an appropriate amount of humour.
Bad Science is a cautionary tale about what can happen if ego goes unchecked, scientists don't adopt an interdisciplinary approach, and the media reports on scientific discoveries without knowing how to critically appraise the results. My jaw dropped several times while reading, and I just kept thinking "I'm only _ way through, HOW CAN THIS GET WORSE??" I'd love to see it reprinted as an updated edition with a forward and afterward for modern times. If that doesn't happen though, and you want to get down into the weeds with a masterful science journalist, do your best to track down a used copy because Gary deserves some ongoing appreciation for his effort.
And after you finish, lighten things up by searching for a RTF copy of Cold Fusion The Musical by former Edmonton comedy group Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. The second act is off the rails but the first act is a very fun way to relive the story.
August 15, 2009
Taubes, one of the best science writers out there, describes the scientific confusion (pun intended) and hard feelings between two universities after the announcement that some researchers had successfully harnessed cold fusion.
Steve Jones at BYU was also working on what he thought was cold fusion. Antagonism developed between the two universities as to who came up with the idea, first and consequently deserved the credit, not to mention the patents with associated royalties estimated by local optimists to be in the billions.
What was certain was that university administrators and the researchers themselves, using a Pascalian logic, took the position that they had little to lose: "You get burned if cold fusion doesn't work, but you sure get burned if you don't do anything about it and it does work. So you've just got to be smart," said the University of Utah president later. He also ignored the advice of an eminent physicist who suggested he let BYU makes fools of themselves. The rush was on.
Cold fusion tempted scientists to break the rules. It became another 'Utah Effect' (a phrase derived from' the notorious X-ray laser affair of 1972 and used to describe any public relations disaster originating in Utah). The original Pons and Fleischmann study did not use a control. How, . critics asked, could they draw any conclusions from their scanty data without some sort of control to compare it against. "As E. Bright Wilson phrased it in An Introduction to Scientific Research thirty-seven years before cold fusion: 'If one doubts the necessity for controls, reflect on the statement: "It has been conclusively demonstrated by hundreds of experiments that the beating of tom-toms will restore the sun after an eclipse." , "
At several scientific meetings the Asch effect was beginning to show. The Asch effect describes studies done by Solomon Asch, a psychologist, who would seat a genuine experimental subject with six confederates who were primed to give a' false answer to a question regarding which of severa1lines was longer. Before long, the experimental subject, who knew he had the right answer, wquld begin to doubt himself Three out of four subjects would side with the group's incorrect conclusion despite knowing the answer to be wrong.
Other experimenters were also learning the effects of mixing speed with the press. Several who thought they had confirmed Pons' data, discovered after their preliminary confinnations were reported at press conferences were widely reported, that their hasty experiments, thrown together in order to be the first to confirm cold fusion, had been tainted or not done correctly. Chuck Martin, at Texas A&M, was one of these unfortunates: "Talking to the press is wrong, very wrong," he said, "It's too easy. And the press can't filter. They can't tell whether the 'thing I've said is bullshit or right."
Taubes writes, "What cold fusion had proven, nonetheless, was that the nonexistence of a phenomenon is by no means a fatal impediment to continued research. As long as financial support could be found, the -research would continue. And that support might always be found so 'long as the researchers could continue to obtain positive results. In fact, the few researchers still working in the field would have little incentive to acknowledge negative results as valid, because such recognition would only cut off their funds. It promised to be an endless loop."
Steve Jones at BYU was also working on what he thought was cold fusion. Antagonism developed between the two universities as to who came up with the idea, first and consequently deserved the credit, not to mention the patents with associated royalties estimated by local optimists to be in the billions.
What was certain was that university administrators and the researchers themselves, using a Pascalian logic, took the position that they had little to lose: "You get burned if cold fusion doesn't work, but you sure get burned if you don't do anything about it and it does work. So you've just got to be smart," said the University of Utah president later. He also ignored the advice of an eminent physicist who suggested he let BYU makes fools of themselves. The rush was on.
Cold fusion tempted scientists to break the rules. It became another 'Utah Effect' (a phrase derived from' the notorious X-ray laser affair of 1972 and used to describe any public relations disaster originating in Utah). The original Pons and Fleischmann study did not use a control. How, . critics asked, could they draw any conclusions from their scanty data without some sort of control to compare it against. "As E. Bright Wilson phrased it in An Introduction to Scientific Research thirty-seven years before cold fusion: 'If one doubts the necessity for controls, reflect on the statement: "It has been conclusively demonstrated by hundreds of experiments that the beating of tom-toms will restore the sun after an eclipse." , "
At several scientific meetings the Asch effect was beginning to show. The Asch effect describes studies done by Solomon Asch, a psychologist, who would seat a genuine experimental subject with six confederates who were primed to give a' false answer to a question regarding which of severa1lines was longer. Before long, the experimental subject, who knew he had the right answer, wquld begin to doubt himself Three out of four subjects would side with the group's incorrect conclusion despite knowing the answer to be wrong.
Other experimenters were also learning the effects of mixing speed with the press. Several who thought they had confirmed Pons' data, discovered after their preliminary confinnations were reported at press conferences were widely reported, that their hasty experiments, thrown together in order to be the first to confirm cold fusion, had been tainted or not done correctly. Chuck Martin, at Texas A&M, was one of these unfortunates: "Talking to the press is wrong, very wrong," he said, "It's too easy. And the press can't filter. They can't tell whether the 'thing I've said is bullshit or right."
Taubes writes, "What cold fusion had proven, nonetheless, was that the nonexistence of a phenomenon is by no means a fatal impediment to continued research. As long as financial support could be found, the -research would continue. And that support might always be found so 'long as the researchers could continue to obtain positive results. In fact, the few researchers still working in the field would have little incentive to acknowledge negative results as valid, because such recognition would only cut off their funds. It promised to be an endless loop."
May 11, 2019
3.5 stars
First go check out Robyn's review, it's much better than mine! And I agree with everything she said.
This is a fantastic account of unchecked science run amok. You can't even call it science. It was a viral pseudo-scientific shit-show that captivated the media for a little over a year, in 1989/90. But a LOT of credible, knowledgeable people bought into it.
I can't rate Bad Science higher because in my opinion this is just not Gary's best work (but I love Gary. GA-RY, GA-RY, GA-RY!). I'm not sure Taubes can top Good Calories, Bad Calories (my review) which changed the way I thought about food. An easy 5-stars. Or The Case Against Sugar (my review, 4 stars) that convinced me to dial back my sugar intake. Both books got deep into the science but gave you a crash course first, whereas Bad Science assumed you knew quite a bit of physics (you pick it up as you go, I guess).
The other strike was that the first ~100 pages were an absolute battle to get through. I'm glad I did - the rest was fantastic - but I almost shelved Bad Science due to the totally dry academic non-drama in most of Part I. Good Calories and The Case had me engaged the whole time.
Bad Science is a great read with caveats. I'd say for a fantastic, in-depth science book, check out Gary's newer offerings first. They're the same premise of calling out BS and mythin scientific fields, but more interesting because a) we all eat, b) we all have bodies and c) food/diet myths are more entrenched in our minds, whereas we are not all nuclear physicists and cold fusion-mania was short lived.
First go check out Robyn's review, it's much better than mine! And I agree with everything she said.
This is a fantastic account of unchecked science run amok. You can't even call it science. It was a viral pseudo-scientific shit-show that captivated the media for a little over a year, in 1989/90. But a LOT of credible, knowledgeable people bought into it.
I can't rate Bad Science higher because in my opinion this is just not Gary's best work (but I love Gary. GA-RY, GA-RY, GA-RY!). I'm not sure Taubes can top Good Calories, Bad Calories (my review) which changed the way I thought about food. An easy 5-stars. Or The Case Against Sugar (my review, 4 stars) that convinced me to dial back my sugar intake. Both books got deep into the science but gave you a crash course first, whereas Bad Science assumed you knew quite a bit of physics (you pick it up as you go, I guess).
The other strike was that the first ~100 pages were an absolute battle to get through. I'm glad I did - the rest was fantastic - but I almost shelved Bad Science due to the totally dry academic non-drama in most of Part I. Good Calories and The Case had me engaged the whole time.
Bad Science is a great read with caveats. I'd say for a fantastic, in-depth science book, check out Gary's newer offerings first. They're the same premise of calling out BS and mythin scientific fields, but more interesting because a) we all eat, b) we all have bodies and c) food/diet myths are more entrenched in our minds, whereas we are not all nuclear physicists and cold fusion-mania was short lived.
May 9, 2013
A well researched blow-by-blow account of what happened as nearly as can be determined. Universities and other institutions spent an enormous expense and effort to replicate an experiment that was done without controls, without understanding what was going on. "Excess heat" was called "cold fusion" even though there was no sign of fusion such as neutrinos, gamma rays, etc. "Excess heat" was claimed even though the experimenters did not account for sources of error. The result was millions of dollars spent trying to confirm a poorly controlled experiment. The book only hinted at the career damage to those who embraced it.
On another level, it is a description of greed and pride pushing out careful science and common sense.
I kept reading because I wanted to find out: 'When will the (insanity) end?'
In addition to the current events, there were pertinent historical quotations sprinkled in. These quotations reminded us that such madness in not just limited to our day. (See: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds first published 1841)
On another level, it is a description of greed and pride pushing out careful science and common sense.
I kept reading because I wanted to find out: 'When will the (insanity) end?'
In addition to the current events, there were pertinent historical quotations sprinkled in. These quotations reminded us that such madness in not just limited to our day. (See: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds first published 1841)
January 23, 2009
Really fascinating look at the cold fusion hubbub that lasted for about a month or two in 1989. (Well, it stumbled along for another year in the minds of the true believers.) Two groups of researchers (Univ Utah and BYU) thought they saw something, and felt they had to announce before they were really sure what. (They had to mostly for patent purposes, but also to make sure they were in line for the Nobel Prize---that's a good one.) Nobody could really reconstruct the results, but those that did see something reported before they could check carefully because, they believed, everyone else was announcing. Then there's the conflict between physicists (who thought that cold fusion doesn't look like this) and chemists who thought they were being dissed by physicists worried about funding disappearing. And the pride from the state of Utah. I liked the negotiations with GE, and someone realizing that it didn't matter whether they gave away 25% or 40%, as the difference is either 15% of nothing or 15% of infinity. Very well-written; it felt that the guy did his homework well.
December 17, 2011
This is a really terrific account of the cold fusion affair of a couple of decades back. I was still holding out some hope that cold fusion might be a possibility, even after this long, but Taubes set me straight. The amount of incompetence, ego(s),cross-disciplinary ignorance, and outright fraud involved was staggering. Taubes, who had reported on the controversy from the beginning, does an excellent job of detailing the events and actions of the major figures and reflecting on what went wrong and when. Very informative.
December 12, 2009
Really interesting and informative book. It's intimidatingly long, but it was a pretty fast read. I hadn't known much about the cold fusion debacle before I picked it up and I was surprised how many names I recognized from electrochemistry. The way in which a lot of scientists reacted, often irrationally, was pretty amazing in places. I guess thinking something will get you billions of dollars and a Nobel Prize can really change the way you act if you aren't careful.
September 3, 2014
I'm giving it 5 stars not because I know Gary, but because the story behind the book was so amazingly compelling at the time, and Gary has done a fantastic job in its retelling. Well-researched and well-written, Gary manages to tell the story, as well as insight into the scientific process (both good and bad) and academia. If anyone is unfamiliar with the story of "cold fusion" in 1989 and is interested, you should start with wikipedia and end with this book.
December 25, 2016
Excruciatingly thorough and without much climax. Very detailed about the interactions and phone calls but doesn't do much to explain the actual science of what was happening. Dozens and dozens of characters to keep track of. Like a mystery novel that ends without telling you who dunnit. Pleasant enough to read but can't see a reason to make time for a second trip through.
Read
July 27, 2011A sad, hilarious, scary, and rivetting account of the cold fusion fiasco. A front row seat to the ultimate slow-motion train wreck.
January 10, 2012
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
June 24, 2021
Taubes provides a detailed history of "cold fusion". In March, 1989 Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann at the University of Utah hosted a press conference where announced that they had observed fusion taking place in an electrochemical cell at room temperatures. The fusion appeared to occur in palladium electrodes in which deuterium had been concentrated. It turned out that Steven Jones at Brigham Young University had been working along similar lines. The Pons and Fleischmann press conference had been arranged to establish their priority.
Over the next year, numerous research groups at various organizations tried to replicate the fusion, generally with minor but hopeful results to no results at all. The primary indicator of fusion was excess heat production. Physics theory would expect that neutrons or gamma rays would be produced as a byproduct of any fusion, but any sign of these were at a very low level. Similarly tritium would be an expected byproduct, but any evidence of tritium production was a possible result of contamination.
Research tended to show a divide between the physicists and the electro-chemists. While the former rejected any idea of fusion without tritium or neutrons, the latter dismissed them as lacking vision and not being open to new possibilities.
What is amazing was the lack of strict experimental process in the research - no control experiments with light water, poor tracking a the voltages and currents and insufficient checks around contamination.
Well into the discussions did a literature search show that hydrogen-palladium cells had been studied "... for a hundred years."
The approach to the research has been characterized as science by press conference, with results communicated by short communications and a lack of peer review.
Over the next year, numerous research groups at various organizations tried to replicate the fusion, generally with minor but hopeful results to no results at all. The primary indicator of fusion was excess heat production. Physics theory would expect that neutrons or gamma rays would be produced as a byproduct of any fusion, but any sign of these were at a very low level. Similarly tritium would be an expected byproduct, but any evidence of tritium production was a possible result of contamination.
Research tended to show a divide between the physicists and the electro-chemists. While the former rejected any idea of fusion without tritium or neutrons, the latter dismissed them as lacking vision and not being open to new possibilities.
What is amazing was the lack of strict experimental process in the research - no control experiments with light water, poor tracking a the voltages and currents and insufficient checks around contamination.
Well into the discussions did a literature search show that hydrogen-palladium cells had been studied "... for a hundred years."
The approach to the research has been characterized as science by press conference, with results communicated by short communications and a lack of peer review.
August 20, 2024
Taubes is a great writer and that's maybe what is so disappointing with this otherwise great book. The author starts with his assessment of the idea and labels the entire idea Bad Science instead of realizing this is the every day occurrence of Science. Scientists are human and are just as flawed as Used Car Salesmen (like Elon Musk). As it turns out Cold Fusion AKA Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions did Not Die and is not dead. Even the evil people of NASA are into Lattice-contained nuclear reactions and plan to use them in very real spaceships in the near future. There are many people who would still like to make metal based fusion work And I for one am one of them. The idea that individuals would make their own energy (not absorb it) is delightful. In this book Taubes (that we all know and love) is a bit of an asshole, Butt; there was likely nothing misstated in the history he presents; only the Opinions are flawed. c'est la vie!
October 10, 2018
I had read Gary's nutrition related books and found them very eye opening. So, as I retired nuclear engineer, I was excited to find that he had written an earlier book on the cold fusion debacle. I found it a facinating story! It gives a great insight on how human falicies play such a big role on what many consider a dispassionate endeavor (science). I wonder what episodes in today's science will be shown to suffer from the same?!
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews