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Denying Science: Conspiracy Theories, Media Distortions, and the War Against Reality ReviewJohn Grant here takes aim at a wide spectrum of anti-science, pseudo-science, biased science and fraudulent science topics: "Intelligent Design," tobacco industry cover-ups, the anti-vaccination campaign, the trumped-up AIDS "controversy," Self-Help, Social Darwinism, eugenics, and, most prominently, climate-change denial, to name the biggies. And he blasts away with a mighty arsenal of facts supported by 38 pages of citations and a 9-page bibliography. One tends to think he has an encyclopedic memory or a busy team of researchers, or both. Moreover, nearly every fact he uses is germane to the topics--no wasted words here.I read this book faster than any other nonfiction book of this length I've ever picked up. I enjoyed it to the extent it buttressed just about every opinion I already had, and furnished me with the kind of ammunition on such topics as climate change I could use to counter the prevailing ignorance on most science-related issues of the day.
However, my enjoyment was tainted with the awareness that I was only too willing to revel in the scorn and satire which John Grant heaps on every source with whom he disagrees. Several time he dismisses a contrary view as having been "demolished," without explaining how the demolition worked. He takes satisfaction in ridiculing statements so moronic as to be beneath notice except for humorous effect--such as a blogger who asks why it is the greenhouse gases haven't escaped "through the giant hole [the ozone hole] they swore up and down existed? You can't have it both ways--either there is a hole, or the gases are trapped." Sure I got a laugh out of this, but at the same time I felt it unfair to imply that the American public in general is that ignorant. If it is, I really need a big rock to crawl under. With such heavy doses of sarcasm, amounting to outright contempt, the author eventually began to put me off.
"Denying Science" is fun for those us who like to have our own biases confirmed with smart, punchy, erudite, humorous, information-chocked fare supplied by the likes of John Grant. But by the book's conclusion I wondered if I had learned anything really new--in the sense of expanding my view of the world or getting a deeper understanding of what the hell is going on in our troubled, fractured, bitterly contentious society. Where did the anti-science bias among the Far (and not-so-far) Right come from, and how can we deal with it? Is it just an ugly Fact of Life, in a category with communicable disease or earthquakes? Maybe, but... I hate to say it, but there's a shallowness in this book that reflects a failure of many of our best minds to come to grips with the most critical issues of our day, whether it concerns science or economic inequity. I feel that John Grant's considerable talents are squandered in simply hammering at obvious targets without probing behind appearances.Denying Science: Conspiracy Theories, Media Distortions, and the War Against Reality Overview
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