Abstract: Much of the public understanding of science literature dealing with fictional scientists claims that scientist villains by their nature embody an antiscience critique. I characterize this claim and its founding assumptions as the "mad scientist" trope. I show how scientist villain characters from the science fiction television series Doctor Who undermine the trope via the programme's use of rhetorical strategies similar to Gilbert and Mulkay's empiricist and contingent repertoires, which define and patrol the boundaries between "science" and "non-science." I discuss three such strategies, including the literal framing of scientist villains as "mad." All three strategies exclude the characters from science, relieve science of responsibility for their villainy, and overtly or covertly contribute to the delivery of pro-science messages consistent with rationalist scientism. I focus on scientist villains from the most popular era of Doctor Who, the mid 1970s, when the show embraced the gothic horror genre.

Abstract: The relationship between science and the philosophy of science is likely to be judged a contested one. Certainly many philosophical debates may seem oblique to the uninitiated (and even then, perhaps still!), whilst recent intellectual debacles have tended to portray philosophers of science in a poor light. During the 1990s, for example, the ‘‘Science Wars’’ erupted over the question of whether scientific theories provided true, objective descriptions of reality, or whether they were simply arbitrary ‘‘constructions,’’ mere mythologies on a par with ancient Greek theogony or medieval magic [1]. There is some truth to such charges, some of it certainly attributable to an unhealthy certain intoxication with trendy theories (like ‘‘relativism’’ and ‘‘constructionism’’). Yet even if those charges are not always justified, and even if the majority of the philosophy of science is informed and responsible, it remains true that philosophers of science who pitch into debates about the sciences beyond their own professional boundaries must take extra care before letting loose their ideas. With that proviso in mind, the title of Paul Feyerabend’s book, The Tyranny of Science, should set off alarm bells, especially since the cover of the book depicts bloodred atomic bombs falling from above onto a desolate city. Indeed, the author himself, who was professor of philosophy at Berkeley and Zurich until his death in 1993, has a ‘‘bad reputation’’ both within and beyond the philosophy of science. Feyerabend was famously dubbed ‘‘the worst enemy of science’’ by Science, and even today philosophers of science will tend to associate his name with antiscience polemics, defences of voodoo and astrology, and more besides [2]. Fortunately, Feyerabend is far more sensible than the title and cover of this book and his bad reputation suggest. Although he is reputed as a critic of science, he is not. Feyerabend is critical not of science itself, but of false and misleading images of the sciences. The ‘‘tyranny’’ of the title refers not to an encroaching and disenchanting ‘‘scientific worldview,’’ of the sort popular with some cultural critics, but with the dangers which arose when people fail to understand and appreciate science. Back in the 1960s and early 1970s, Feyerabend urged philosophers of science to take seriously both the history of science and scientific practice— he was a trained physicist himself—and warned his peers that mere abstract reflection on the sciences would produce only idealised fantasies of science, rather than workable models of it. Although subsequent generations of philosophers of science took him seriously, many at the time took his claim as a personal attack— hence the ‘‘bad reputation.’’ Into the 1980s, Feyerabend began to expand the scope of his ideas. By the beginning of the 1980s, the philosophy of science was a richer discipline, so Feyerabend moved onto new issues. It struck him that public confidence in the sciences was beginning to change into the 1980s. The nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, waning interest in the space program, and ambitious new claims on behalf of genetics were beginning to affect public faith in the sciences. Feyerabend was not opposed to such public doubts, but he did worry that the public concerns, although sincere, were too often ill-informed. Worse still, those worries were often amplified by overzealous philosophers who, to his mind, were failing in their job of clarifying concepts, scrutinising arguments, and helping people to articulate and develop their ideas. By the late 1980s, Feyerabend began to take special issue with philosophers who actively encouraged such confusions, for instance by announcing that electrons and genes were mere ‘‘social constructions,’’ or by rebranding forms of relativism, or by implicating ‘‘Western Science’’ in a powerful conspiracy to disempower indigenous cultures—indeed, Feyerabend himself succumbed to such alluring polemics for a time, which partly explains his hostile reaction to them later in his career [3]. Feyerabend’s issues with public concerns about science and his worries about philosophers’ role in the subsequent debates laid the foundations for the lectures that became The Tyranny of Science. In fact, the original title of that lecture series was Conflict and Harmony, which is a much better title because it indicates that public engagement with Feyerabend P (2011) The Tyranny of Science. Oberheim E, editor. Cambridge: Polity Press. 180 p. ISBN-13: 978-0745651897 (hardcover). US$54.95 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001166.g001

Abstract: To climate scientists like Pennsylvania State University9s Michael Mann, who has come under relentless attacks from climate change skeptics, John Mashey is "one of the good guys." The 65-year-old Mashey, who amassed a small fortune designing computer systems for the likes of Bell Labs and Silicon Graphics, is spending his retirement years compiling voluminous critiques of what he calls the "real conspiracy" to produce "climate antiscience." He is trying to turn the tables, using tactics some of Mann9s opponents may find uncomfortably familiar.

Abstract: Adorno, no less than Heidegger or Nietzsche, had his own critical notions of truth/untruth. But Adorno’s readers are unsettled by the barest hint of anything that might be taken to be antiscience. To protest scientism, yes and to be sure, but to protest “scientific thought,” decidedly not, and the distinction is to be maintained even if Adorno himself challenged it. For Adorno, so-called “scientistic” tendencies are the very “conditions of society and of scientific thought.” And again, Adorno’s readers tend to refuse criticism of this kind. Scientific rationality cannot itself be problematic and E. B. Ashton, Adorno’s translator in the mid-1960s, sought to underscore this with the word “scientivistic.” Rather than science, it is scientism that is to be avoided. So we ask: is Adorno speaking here of scientific rationality or scientistic rationality? How, in general, are we to read Adorno?

Abstract: [1] In his Forum, Kenneth Verosub (Eos, 91(33), 291, doi:10.1029/2010EO330003, 2010) tries to explain the climate denial phenomenon as due to postmodernist misinterpretation of scientific results. Unfortunately, I fear that this is only a minor cause and that the true explanation is much more insidious, with serious ramifications for all scientists, not just climatologists. As documented in several recent publications [e.g., Mayer, 2010], climate scientists are currently bearing the brunt of a deliberate, antiscience, misinformation campaign that is financed by certain fossil fuel companies and propagated by certain conservative radio programs, television organizations, and think tanks. Verosub wonders why no one has offered an explanation for why scientists worldwide are engaged in this supposed hoax. But explanations are frequently offered on conservative talk shows. For example, I found myself listening to The War Room With Quinn and Rose last fall while driving in the Pittsburgh, Pa., area and was appalled by the scenario painted in the show by cohost Jim Quinn. Apparently, all academics are socialists. Further, the Earth is not warming—it has been getting cooler since 1999. Quinn continued with this gem: Climate warming is an international conspiracy, funded by billionaire George Soros, perpetrated by scientists everywhere, and intended to delude governments into spending vast sums of money to counter a non-existent threat until the governments become bankrupt. Then in the ensuing chaos, socialists can take over and form a world socialist government.