Chronicle of a Cassandra The Dark Matters of Science

Around 50 years ago, Carl Sagan said: "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." the situation is even worse today. This is a book about misconceptions, about putting the record straight, restoring the balance. Many people I come across, including some scientists, have a somewhat peculiar idea about the meaning of the word science. They know what science is because of what they were taught during their education and what they read in the media. They associate technology and science as if they were one and the same thing. Science is not technology and technology is not thanks to science. Technology usually turns out to be the work of dedicated amateurs without scientific qualifications. The book explores the history of many modern technologies, together with a parallel history of science, specifically, it's contribution to technology. The conclusion is somewhat surprising, if only for its lack of academic scientific input. There is evidence that academic science has, on occasions, deliberately delayed, pseudo-debunked or even killed-off new technologies and that the trend continues unabated.