A survey of what it described as pseudosciences and cult beliefs, it became a founding document in the nascent scientific skepticism movement. Michael Shermer said of it: "Modern skepticism has developed into a science-based movement, beginning with Martin Gardner's 1952 classic".
The book debunks what it characterises as pseudo-science and the pseudo-scientists who propagate it. It begins with a brief survey of the spread of the ideas of "cranks" and "pseudo-scientists", attacking the credulity of the popular press and the irresponsibility of publishing houses in helping to propagate these ideas. Cranks often cite historical cases where ideas were rejected which are now accepted as right. Gardner acknowledges that such cases occurred, and describes some of them, but says that times have changed: "If anything, scientific journals err on the side of permitting questionable theses to be published". Gardner acknowledges that "among older scientists ... one may occasionally meet with irrational prejudice against a new point of view", but adds that "a certain degree of dogma ... is both necessary and desirable" because otherwise "science would be reduced to shambles by having to examine every new-fangled notion that came along."
Gardner says that cranks have two common characteristics. The first "and most important" is that they work in almost total isolation from the scientific community. Gardner defines the community as an efficient network of communication within scientific fields, together with a co-operative process of testing new theories.
This process allows for apparently bizarre theories to be published — such as Einstein's theory of relativity, which initially met with considerable opposition; it was never dismissed as the work of a crackpot, and it soon met with almost universal acceptance. But the crank "stands entirely outside the closely integrated channels through which new ideas are introduced and evaluated. He does not send his findings to the recognized journals or, if he does, they are rejected for reasons which in the vast majority of cases are excellent."
Flat and Hollow
In the second Chapter the first case studies examined under the Heading Flat and Hollow. This includes the Flat Earth theory of Wilbur Glenn Voliva (1870 – 1942) who was an evangelist who ended up misappropriating church funds to sustain his overtly lavish lifestyle, amassing a $5m personal fortune by 1927, which began to alienate his followers, especially after the hardships brought on by the Great Depression.
Voliva arrived in Zion, Illinois, during February 1906, coming from Australia, where he had been sent to become overseer-in-charge of the Australian branch of the Christian Catholic Church of Zion, and was elected as head of this evangelical Church, following the revolt of the members at the apparent corruption of the founder of the Church, John Alexander Dowie. Voliva immediately renamed the Church the "Christian Catholic Apostolic Church." By careful management he rescued Zion from bankruptcy, gaining the support of the church members. He kept tight control on his some 6,000 followers, which made up the community, even up to the point of dictating their choice of marriage partners. The city of Zion was effectively controlled by the church; all of its real estate, while sold at market rates, was conveyed under a 1,100 year lease, subject to many restrictions and to termination at the whim of the General Overseer. Religions other than the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church were effectively banned – visiting preachers from rival sects were harassed and hounded out of town by the city police force.
Voliva diversified Zion Industries, an industrial concern owned by the church that manufactured Scottish lace, to include a bakery which produced the popular Zion brand fig bar cookies and White Dove chocolates. Zion was a one-company town and its workers were paid substandard wages.
Voliva introduced many new rules for members and notices were placed around the town with stern warnings that the citizens who didn't belong to the church resented and often burned. However, the city was established as a safe space for those within its boundaries.
From 1914, Voliva gained nationwide notoriety by his vigorous advocacy of the flat earth doctrine. He offered a widely publicized $5000 challenge for anyone to disprove the flat earth theory. The church schools in Zion taught the flat earth doctrine. In 1923 Voliva became the first evangelical preacher in the world to own his own radio station, WCBD, which could be heard as far away as Central America. His radio station broadcast his diatribes against round earth astronomy, and the evils of evolution.
He was quoted about the sun as follows:
The idea of a sun millions of miles in diameter and 91,000,000 miles away is silly. The sun is only 32 miles across and not more than 3,000 miles from the earth. It stands to reason it must be so. God made the sun to light the earth, and therefore must have placed it close to the task it was designed to do. What would you think of a man who built a house in Zion and put the lamp to light it in Kenosha, Wisconsin?He became increasingly focused on destroying the 'trinity of evils': modern astronomy, evolution and higher criticism, insisting on a strict interpretation of 24-hour days for creation and travelling to Dayton, Tennessee, to appear as a witness at the Scopes trial (he wasn't called).
The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case in July 1925 in which a substitute high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he purposely incriminated himself so that the case could have a defendant.
Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 (equivalent to $1429 in 2018), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. The trial served its purpose of drawing intense national publicity, as national reporters flocked to Dayton to cover the big-name lawyers who had agreed to represent each side. William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow, the famed defense attorney, spoke for Scopes. The trial publicized the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy, which set Modernists, who said evolution was not inconsistent with religion, against Fundamentalists, who said the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge. The case was thus seen as both a theological contest and a trial on whether "modern science" should be taught in schools.
The viewpoint of science and/or God?
Voliva also vainly predicted the end of the world would come in 1923, 1927, 1930, 1934 and 1935.
List of dates predicted for apocalypse
In 1936, Voliva's radio station WCBD was sold to Gene T. Dyer. It became a commercial operation, and aired religious, ethnic, and music programming. On April 2, 1937, the station's transmitter and the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church's Shiloh Tabernacle were destroyed in a fire set by a teenager who believed Voliva had swindled his father. Its transmitter site was relocated to Addison Township, in what today is part of Elmhurst, Illinois.
WCBD is nowadays known as WCPT and is a Progressive Talk radio station licensed to Willow Springs, Illinois, and serving the Chicago metropolitan area. Progressive Talk radio is a radio format devoted to expressing left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoints of news and issues as opposed to conservative talk radio.WCPT is owned by Newsweb Corporation. Newsweb's owner, Fred Eychaner, is a significant donor to Democratic Party causes, gay rights advocacy groups, and arts organizations.
The Hollow Earth is a historical concept proposing that the planet Earth is entirely hollow or contains a substantial interior space. Notably suggested by Edmond Halley in the late 17th century, the notion was tentatively disproven by Pierre Bouguer in 1740, and definitively by Charles Hutton (1778).
It was still occasionally defended in the early-to-mid 19th century, notably by John Cleves Symmes Jr. and Jeremiah N. Reynolds, but by this time was part of popular pseudoscience and no longer a scientifically viable hypothesis.
The concept of a hollow Earth still recurs in folklore and as the premise for subterranean fiction, and a subgenre of adventure fiction (Journey to the Center of the Earth, At the Earth's Core).
