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The great biologist Louis Pasteur suppressed 'awkward' data because it didn't support the case he was making. John Snow, the 'first epidemiologist' was doing nothing others had not done before. Gregor Mendel, the supposed 'founder of genetics' never grasped the fundamental principles of 'Mendelian' genetics. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, was “proven” by Arthur Eddington in 1919 on evidence too shaky to convict a horse thief. Dr. Joseph Lister, the nineteenth century advocate of hygiene, lost patients in surgery because he was unaware of the importance of cleanliness in his wards. Charles Darwin followed Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in believing in the inheritance of acquired characteristic more than in simple survival of the fittest. These are just some of the revelations explored in this book.

Fabulous Science: Fact and Fiction in the History of Scientific Discovery.