- Hardcover: 294 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Press; First Printing edition (29 Oct 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1594202303
- ISBN-13: 978-1594202308
- Product Dimensions: 23.5 x 16.5 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 548,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Denialism
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
In this provocative and headline- making book, Michael Specter confronts the widespread fear of science and its terrible toll on individuals and the planet.
In Denialism, New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter reveals that Americans have come to mistrust institutions and especially the institution of science more today than ever before. For centuries, the general view had been that science is neither good nor bad-that it merely supplies information and that new information is always beneficial. Now, science is viewed as a political constituency that isn't always in our best interest. We live in a world where the leaders of African nations prefer to let their citizens starve to death rather than import genetically modified grains. Childhood vaccines have proven to be the most effective public health measure in history, yet people march on Washington to protest their use. In the United States a growing series of studies show that dietary supplements and "natural" cures have almost no value, and often cause harm. We still spend billions of dollars on them. In hundreds of the best universities in the world, laboratories are anonymous, unmarked, and surrounded by platoons of security guards-such is the opposition to any research that includes experiments with animals. And pharmaceutical companies that just forty years ago were perhaps the most visible symbol of our remarkable advance against disease have increasingly been seen as callous corporations propelled solely by avarice and greed.
As Michael Specter sees it, this amounts to a war against progress. The issues may be complex but the choices are not: Are we going to continue to embrace new technologies, along with acknowledging their limitations and threats, or are we ready to slink back into an era of magical thinking? In Denialism, Specter makes an argument for a new Enlightenment, the revival of an approach to the physical world that was stunningly effective for hundreds of years: What can be understood and reliably repeated by experiment is what nature regarded as true. Now, at the time of mankind's greatest scientific advances-and our greatest need for them-that deal must be renewed.
In Denialism, New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter reveals that Americans have come to mistrust institutions and especially the institution of science more today than ever before. For centuries, the general view had been that science is neither good nor bad-that it merely supplies information and that new information is always beneficial. Now, science is viewed as a political constituency that isn't always in our best interest. We live in a world where the leaders of African nations prefer to let their citizens starve to death rather than import genetically modified grains. Childhood vaccines have proven to be the most effective public health measure in history, yet people march on Washington to protest their use. In the United States a growing series of studies show that dietary supplements and "natural" cures have almost no value, and often cause harm. We still spend billions of dollars on them. In hundreds of the best universities in the world, laboratories are anonymous, unmarked, and surrounded by platoons of security guards-such is the opposition to any research that includes experiments with animals. And pharmaceutical companies that just forty years ago were perhaps the most visible symbol of our remarkable advance against disease have increasingly been seen as callous corporations propelled solely by avarice and greed.
As Michael Specter sees it, this amounts to a war against progress. The issues may be complex but the choices are not: Are we going to continue to embrace new technologies, along with acknowledging their limitations and threats, or are we ready to slink back into an era of magical thinking? In Denialism, Specter makes an argument for a new Enlightenment, the revival of an approach to the physical world that was stunningly effective for hundreds of years: What can be understood and reliably repeated by experiment is what nature regarded as true. Now, at the time of mankind's greatest scientific advances-and our greatest need for them-that deal must be renewed.
About the Author
Michael Specter writes about science, technology, and global public health for The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1998. Specter previously worked for the The New York Times as a roving correspondent based in Rome and before that as the Times's Moscow bureau chief. He also served as the national science reporter for The Washington Post as well as the New York bureau chief. He has twice received the Global Health Council's Excellence in Media Award, as well as the Science Journalism Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Although this book is called "Denialism", you will find nothing but passing references to Holocaust denial or evolution denial, and nothing at all about the rampant climate change denial industry. Instead, there is a ragbag of mainly medical and biological topics, ranging from the Vioxx scandal through irrational fear of GM foods to the pernicious anti-vaccination movement to the moral challenge of designer babies. The only unifying thread is a shotgun attack on unreasonable and unscientific thinking, but the analysis of this, like the level of analysis and scholarship throughout the book, is shallow. There are notes on each of the chapters, and a bibliography, but these are not keyed to the text and it is at times impossible to check specific claims.
Most of the material discussed has been treated far better elsewhere, for example in Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, in Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things, or more recently (for those willing to see religious beliefs gently but firmly treated the same way as any others) in Hank Davis's excellent Caveman Logic
Most of the material discussed has been treated far better elsewhere, for example in Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, in Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things, or more recently (for those willing to see religious beliefs gently but firmly treated the same way as any others) in Hank Davis's excellent Caveman Logic
26 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Initially very excited by the title of this book, I was hoping to find an explanation or at least thoughtful discussion about the seeming loss of trust or acceptance of modern science, especially with regards to climate change. Unfortunately what I found was a collection of anecdotes written by a journalist pretending to be scientist, lacking in any real theories or scientific insight and full of weasel words and other journalistic speak.
The book seemed more like an excuse for Specter to air his dirty laundry and have a rant about everything he had taken a dislike to in his professional life, loosely brought together under the title of `Denialism'. By far the biggest disappointment was the noticeable lack of discussion about surely the biggest denialism of our time, that of climate change. He makes his view on this issue clearly known but fails to address the issue in any depth, instead focusing on attacking the largely benign alternative health and organic food movements, while worshipping big pharma and rejecting the precautionary principle entirely with regards to genetic technology.
Entire chapters seem inconsistent, irrational and poorly edited. In the chapter on organic food he clearly states that rising meat consumption, and its disproportionate consumption of resources, is the greatest threat to our ability to feed the world, yet he focuses his attack instead on consumers who choose to purchase organically grown foods. In a chapter dedicated to discrediting alternative medicine he not only lumps together the vastly different modalities of herbal medicine and homeopathy, but makes outlandish claims, with almost no references, about the failings of various herbal products. Later in the book he worships sweet wormwood (a herb) for its extract artemisinin's treatment of malaria in the third world. He somehow manages to turn his chapter on the lethal consequences and blatant suppression of scientific findings of a new drug Vioxx, into praise for big pharma. With his degree of denialism of integrative medicine perhaps he needs to indulge in some kava kava or opium poppies, or perhaps even sip on some hemlock tea.
This book is very readable in style, as would be expected from a journalist of Michael Specter's experience. However there is a stunning and overwhelming lack of the very scientific content which he holds so dearly, resulting in the book consisting largely of a rather lengthy collection of anecdotes and theories, scattered with traces of science. Overall this book was very disappointing and did not fulfil even nearly what the title promised.
The book seemed more like an excuse for Specter to air his dirty laundry and have a rant about everything he had taken a dislike to in his professional life, loosely brought together under the title of `Denialism'. By far the biggest disappointment was the noticeable lack of discussion about surely the biggest denialism of our time, that of climate change. He makes his view on this issue clearly known but fails to address the issue in any depth, instead focusing on attacking the largely benign alternative health and organic food movements, while worshipping big pharma and rejecting the precautionary principle entirely with regards to genetic technology.
Entire chapters seem inconsistent, irrational and poorly edited. In the chapter on organic food he clearly states that rising meat consumption, and its disproportionate consumption of resources, is the greatest threat to our ability to feed the world, yet he focuses his attack instead on consumers who choose to purchase organically grown foods. In a chapter dedicated to discrediting alternative medicine he not only lumps together the vastly different modalities of herbal medicine and homeopathy, but makes outlandish claims, with almost no references, about the failings of various herbal products. Later in the book he worships sweet wormwood (a herb) for its extract artemisinin's treatment of malaria in the third world. He somehow manages to turn his chapter on the lethal consequences and blatant suppression of scientific findings of a new drug Vioxx, into praise for big pharma. With his degree of denialism of integrative medicine perhaps he needs to indulge in some kava kava or opium poppies, or perhaps even sip on some hemlock tea.
This book is very readable in style, as would be expected from a journalist of Michael Specter's experience. However there is a stunning and overwhelming lack of the very scientific content which he holds so dearly, resulting in the book consisting largely of a rather lengthy collection of anecdotes and theories, scattered with traces of science. Overall this book was very disappointing and did not fulfil even nearly what the title promised.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Debunking those who believe in bunk - medical, dietary, scientific bunk - and showcasing the research that refutes their denial of the truth, Michael Specter writes with the easy grace expected of a New Yorker magazine staff writer. Specter looks at the willful denial of the facts regarding Vioxx, vaccines and their relationship to autism, organic and genetically engineered food, and the future of genomics - the science of genes. Informative, readable, amusing and sure to make you wonder whether you practice a bit of "denialism" in your own beliefs (well, of course not).
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
