Fake news, pseudoscience and conspiracy in a historical overview that underpins the boundaries between science and the rampant chatter in the public and political debate.
Newspapers, magazines, radio broadcasts and TV shows have always dedicated plenty of space to topics such as paranormal phenomena, astrological forecasts and contacts with extraterrestrials, without any scientific filters. But how does a pseudoscientific theory gain traction? What are its arguments and how are they structured?
The book is the first of its kind and features a chronological path from Galileo Galilei to the present day, reconstructing the recurrent mechanisms of pseudoscience through the biographies of the characters who contributed to the development of certain ideas, from the myth of Atlantis to homeopathy and to racism.