294 Thurs and Numbers
to “help solve the labor problem of industry.” Sadly, however, their de-
mand had resulted in the revival of such examples of “pseudo- science” as
“phrenology, physiognomy, character reading and character analysis.”^49
Meanwhile, the conceptual boundary between science and the general
public also generated a large share of the rhetoric of pseudoscience. That
boundary had been enhanced by the specialization and increasingly tech-
nical nature of scientifi c knowledge. As the space between the scientifi c
and popular grew, textbooks for the expanded public- school system and
the developing profession of science journalism helped to establish sanc-
tioned crossings of scientifi c boundaries and to spread more or less accu-
rate refl ections of scientifi c orthodoxy to the general public. Still, despite
the work of dedicated popularizers, some observers claimed to detect a
“great public interest in pseudo- science.” In 1927, A. W. Meyer, then pro-
fessor of anatomy at Stanford University, noted Sir William Osler’s claim
that there was no shortage of pseudoscience in medicine. Meyer added
his own observation that public credulity seemed to be peaking, driven,
he suggested, by the stresses of modern life, particularly those related to
war and religion. Another author wrote with some alarm that “pseudo
and unscientifi c cults are springing up and fi nding it easy to get a hold
on the popular mind.” As evidence, he cited West Virginia’s legal recogni-
tion in 1925 of chiropractic and naturopathy.^50 Though such depictions
could hardly brighten the heart of admirers of science, beliefs about the
popularity of pseudoscience could also inspire and justify populariza-
tion. As early as 1921, an editor of The Month magazine had raised alarm
about a “plague” of pseudoscientifi c ideas and asserted that “the follies
and pretenses of pseudo- science are best met by vigorous and persistent
exposure.”^51
Just as during the late 1800s, worries persisted that the media’s handling
of science was as much a cause of problems as of solutions. Popular treat-
ments of science were often prime culprits in creating and spreading
pseudoscientifi c misconceptions. As we have seen, W. E. B. Du Bois at-
tributed widespread racial pseudoscience to “books, magazines, papers
and lectures.”^52 One of the new forms of literature emerging during the
early 1900s that seemed especially likely to spread scientifi c error was the
genre of the “scientifi c romance,” exemplifi ed by such authors as Jules
Verne and H. G. Wells. Writing in the Saturday Review, one skeptic wor-
ried that many scientifi c novels offered fairy stories rather than “the an-
ticipations of a future science founded upon the positively ascertained
facts of the present” and aimed to amuse “boys and maidens” rather than
educate serious- minded seekers after science. “On the whole,” he advised
his readers, “it is better when we want science to read science; and when