---
title: "Voodoo Science"
chunk: 1/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo_Science"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:46.326818+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud is a book published in 2000 by physics professor Robert L. Park, critical of research that falls short of adhering to the scientific method. Other people have used the term "voodoo science", but amongst academics it is most closely associated with Park. The book is critical of, among other things, homeopathy, cold fusion and the International Space Station.

== Categories ==
Park uses the term voodoo science (see the quote section below, Page 10) as covering four categories which evolve from self-delusion to fraud:

pathological science, wherein genuine scientists deceive themselves
junk science, speculative theorizing which bamboozles rather than enlightens
pseudoscience proper, work falsely claiming to have a scientific basis, which may be dependent on supernatural explanations
fraudulent science, exploiting bad science for the purposes of fraud
Park criticizes junk science as the creature of "scientists, many of whom have impressive credentials, who craft arguments deliberately intended to deceive or confuse."

== Examples cited ==
Perpetual motion, free energy suppression and fringe physics claims
Robert Fludd
Garabed T. K. Giragossian
The Energy Machine of Joseph Newman
Better World Technologies (Dennis Lee)
Blacklight Power, formerly HydroCatalysis (Randell Mills)
Cold fusion (Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann)
Patterson Power Cell (James Patterson)
Gravitational shielding (Eugene Podkletnov)
Human spaceflight (in terms of actual importance to science since the rise of robotic spacecraft)
International Space Station (for claims of necessity to conduct scientific research)
Gerard K. O'Neill, L5 Society and space colonization
Robert Zubrin, Mars Society, Biosphere 2 and a human mission to Mars
Voodoo science protected by government secrecy
Project Mogul and the Roswell UFO incident resulting in a loss of public trust, as well as the later alien autopsy video hoax
Edward Teller and Lowell Wood's work on the Strategic Defense Initiative (especially regarding the X-ray laser, but also "Brilliant Pebbles")
Great Oil Sniffer Hoax
Superstitions and pseudoscience
Mars effect (astrology) claimed by Michel Gauquelin
Parapsychology (e.g. Robert G. Jahn and Dean Radin)
Placebos and alternative medicine
Vitamin O
Homeopathy
water memory (proposed by Jacques Benveniste)
Animal magnetism
Magnet therapy
Therapeutic touch (debunked by Emily Rosa at age nine)
Other health claims
Maharishi Effect (using Transcendental Meditation (TM) to effect a decrease in societal violence; the spike in murders during the 1993 Washington D.C. study is specifically mentioned)
Deepak Chopra (who makes claims linking Ayurveda (traditional medicine native to India) with quantum mechanics)
Electromagnetic radiation and health (especially related to power lines and cancer risk)
"Paul Brodeur and Microwave News in particular, had given the public a seriously distorted view of the scientific facts." (Page 158)
Contributing factors
Mainstream media reporting voodoo science uncritically as infotainment
Abolition of the Office of Technology Assessment
Establishment of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Park also discusses the Daubert standard for excluding junk science from litigation.

== Quotes ==
I came to realize that many people choose scientific beliefs the same way they choose to be Methodists, or Democrats, or Chicago Cubs fans. They judge science by how well it agrees with the way they want the world to be. (Pages VIII-IX)
[P]ractitioners [of pseudoscience] may believe it to be science, just as witches and faith healers may truly believe they can call forth supernatural powers. What may begin as an honest error, however, has a way of evolving through almost imperceptible steps from self-delusion to fraud. The line between foolishness and fraud is thin. Because it is not always easy to tell when that line is crossed, I use the term voodoo science to cover them all: pathological science, junk science, pseudoscience and fraudulent science. This book is meant to help the reader to recognize voodoo science and to understand the forces that seem to conspire to keep it alive. (Page 10)
The integrity of science is anchored in the willingness of scientists to test their ideas and results in direct confrontation with their scientific peers. (Page 16)
America's astronauts have been left stranded in low-Earth orbit, like passengers waiting beside an abandoned stretch of track for a train that will never come, bypassed by the advance of science. (Page 91)
Few scientists or inventors set out to commit fraud.  In the beginning, most believe they have made a great discovery.  But what happens when they finally realize that things are not behaving as they believed? (Page 104)
[T]he uniquely American myth of the self-educated genius fighting against a pompous, close-minded establishment. (Page 112)
They are betting against the laws of thermodynamics.  No one has ever won that wager. (Page 138)

== Warning signs ==
Drawing on examples used in Voodoo Science, Park outlined seven warning signs that a claim may be pseudoscientific in a 2003 article for The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Discoverers make their claims directly to the popular media, rather than to fellow scientists.
Discoverers claim that a conspiracy has tried to suppress the discovery.
The claimed effect appears so weak that observers can hardly distinguish it from noise.  No amount of further work increases the signal.
Anecdotal evidence is used to back up the claim.
True believers cite ancient traditions in support of the new claim.
The discoverer or discoverers work in isolation from the mainstream scientific community.
The discovery, if true, would require a change in the understanding of the fundamental laws of nature.