Lenin's Brain by Tilman Spengler

I can highly recommend this very funny novel. It tells the story of some 'brain scientists' in (primarily) German from the late 1800s to the 1930s. It is great satire and very amusing. The final joke may be on the reader because by poking fun at stupid science from a previous era, the reader may well wind up laughing at himself without knowing it. Government funding of stupid science did not end in 1945. It continues to this day all over the world.

Whenever someone refers to the 'superstitious people in the ancient world' I nearly piss myself laughing. We, of course, are far too sophisticated to have superstitions--except of course for nationalism, dialectical materialism, multiculturalism, 'intelligent design,' creationism, ....