Forgotten Science ― Strange Ideas from the Scrapheap of History

From the idea that the Earth could be hollow, to the notion that bees were far too religious to bother with sex, to the claim that a dying civilization might inhabit Mars, there have been many crackpot scientific ideas and schemes proposed throughout history. Some of these ideas remained the preserve of the lunatic fringe, whilst others were sincerely believed in by credible mainstream figures and were even put into actual practice.

When regimes like the Nazis get into power, eccentric scientists are given free rein to try and do mad things like create ape-human hybrids or resurrect the dead, and when people feel under threat from genuine new scientific theories, they sometimes try and remodel them for their own ends – such as trying to reintroduce a spiritual component to Darwinism by claiming that it is controlled by fairies. Steven Tucker discusses the history and nature of several of the most bizarre and outmoded such ideas from throughout history, discovering which had a grain of truth to them and which were always destined to end up on the scrapheap of history.

S. D. Tucker is an author and journalist. He has written three books for Amberley and writes a regular column in Fortean Times magazine. He lives in Widnes, Cheshire.