296 Thurs and Numbers
pseudoscientifi c horde, others did address the “assumptions and preten-
sions of the hydra- headed pseudo- science.” The sense of a wide variety of
pseudoscientifi c ideas originating from an essential core culminated in a
tendency to see pseudoscience not simply as the scattered errors of true
science but as an example of “anti- science,” a concept that would become
widespread among those worried about popular misconception during
the rest of the century.^57
The rhetorical trends of the previous century and a half laid the foun-
dations for an explosion of talk about pseudoscience in America and else-
where during the last third of the 1900s. After a small increase during the
1920s, usage of the term rose dramatically in the pages of English- language
print media from the late 1960s onward, dwarfi ng the previous level of
public invocation.^58 Such talk was especially aimed at a series of unor-
thodoxies that appeared to erupt into popular culture after World War II,
including the astronomical theories of Immanuel Velikovsky, sightings of
UFOs and their occupants, and reports of extrasensory perception (ESP).
Such notions were not necessarily more transgressive than, say, phrenol-
ogy, but they did occur against the backdrop of the greater establishment
of science, including the massive infusion of material support for research
from the federal government, particularly the military. That establish-
ment helped to create an environment that encouraged protecting the
boundaries of science against invasion. Scientists now had much more to
lose. The considerable increase in support for scientifi c work also helped
to establish a heightened sense of scientifi c orthodoxy. A highly devel-
oped system of graduate education provided the required credentials to
would- be scientists and socialized them into certain shared practices, be-
liefs, and pieces of knowledge. Professional journals, policed by the peer-
review process, ensured a similar synchronization, at least on basic mat-
ters of fact, theory, and method.
An enhanced sense that there was a scientifi c orthodoxy, as well as
mechanisms for ensuring one, resulted in a much more strongly bounded
concept of science. Against this backdrop Edward Condon, who had him-
self constructed a career within the military- industrial- academic establish-
ment, denounced pseudoscience as “scientifi c pornography.” Where con-
sensus broke down, charges of pseudoscience could mobilize a communal
distaste for transgression against one’s rivals. Social scientists, ethnoscien-
tists, sexologists, sociobiologists, and just about anyone working in psy-
chology and psychiatry were susceptible to be labeled pseudoscientists.
Emerging new fi elds, clamoring for respect and support, were often met
with pseudoscientifi c accusations. While skeptics portrayed the so- called
search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, as beyond the pale of scien-