The Geek Manifesto: Why Science Matters [Paperback]

In this review, I'm going to follow the author's lead and pretend that Geeks are a homogeneous community who speak and act - more or less - with a single accord.

This is an important book. It is a rallying cry to Geeks everywhere to organise ourselves as a lobby group to give science and rationalism a stronger voice in government and policy making, to counter the organised voices of vested interests whose political clout far exceeds their following.

Parts of this book will probably be illuminating to even to the politically aware geek. He talks much about how evidence is routinely abused by politicians. To whet your appetite, "spray on evidence", "cherry-picking evidence", "shopping list evidence", "veneer of evidence", "hand-picking advisers", "misunderstanding evidence", "cargo cult science", "confirmation bias", "cognitive dissonance" are all expounded concepts of evidence-abuse by our politicians in justifying their policies.

The Geeks, he says in a theme which runs through the book, are beginning to organise themselves to bring our policy makers to account for designing off-the-cuff, populist policies and pretending they're the result of scientific research. And he tells us how we can join in: how we can access information and resources, get Geek candidates into the halls of power, and persuade the organs of power to adopt scientific method to inform policy choices.

Numerous case studies of alleged science-abuse are covered, which include examples of missed opportunities, best practice, abuse of power, undermining scientific advisers, and - of course - the evidence misuse. Let's give you another list of a few of his topics: chiropractic, phone masts, animal rights, phonetic phonics, starting school lessons later, drugs policy, the Forensic Science Service, RCTs in education, NHS informing Criminology, Homoeopathy, Drugs, Nuclear Power, Global Warming, GM.

So, why have I given this book only 3 out of 5 stars? It comes down to this bizarre reality: he frequently abuses evidence in his case studies!!! :

* It's a scientists-always-right, politicians-always-wrong assessment. However closely politicians may follow scientific method in a specific case, he allows scientists to escape through some invented trap-door, before blame is allocated.

* There are lots of examples of him giving just one side of an argument.

* Although he's *explicitly* very clear that science doesn't trump democracy; there is an *implicit* message in his case studies that it damned well probably should.

* He cherry-picks quotes/actions of politicians and applies them unfairly or out of context (like the Blair "no reverse gear" and Thatcher "You turn if you want to" party conference sound-bites: he misappropriated and labelled them 'anathema to evidence-based policy'. We know that these were about New Labour reforms in general (Blair), and unpopular policies of recession (Thatcher). But we get the facile comment: "Would you drive a car with no reverse gear, or that wouldn't u-turn?".)

* He is completely unrealistic about the extent of opportunity for Randomised Control Trials (especially in the uncompromising methods he selectively applies to them); and he has unequal standards: when scientists' research trials fail it is the nature of science, but when governments' research trials fail they have wasted money.

In spite of its short-comings, this is an important book. Anybody who cares about science-abuse in policy-making and wants to be part of the clean-up team should definitely read it and act on some of the ideas. But hey, he's talking to Geeks... he should expect us to read it sceptically and not bleat unquestioning agreement like a flock of sheep, huh?

Mark Henderson has written a book which all scientists and politicians should read. From its very beginning, he catalogues time after time how politicians misunderstand and underfund basic scientific research. They misunderstand it because almost all of them have no scientific background. That they underfund it is remarkable, seeing that they bend over backwards to ease the way of entrepreneurs and investors who are only too happy to reap the benefits of this research.

There are many highlights. I mention only a few. Sarah Palin for instance, wondering why on earth biologists were funded (in modest terms) to study fruit flies. Anyone who has studied genetics at all would know that the study of variations in fruit flies underpinned that subject, but maybe Sarah doesn't believe in evolution?

There are the news program debates, where the interviewers give equal weight and hearing to solidly founded research and crank views, be it in climate science, stem cell research or alternative medicine. Time and again, a refutation of the crank views is easily to hand, but is not used, in the interests of a false sense of "balance", where the hippo and the ant are deemed to have equal weight.

We have Vince Cable telling us that much scientific research is not even worthwhile and should be cut. In this case, a concerted campaign achieved only a freezing of funding, ie, a cut in real terms. If politicians could have predicted the World Wide Web, developed as a by-product of trying to share CERN's discoveries, could they have pushed funds in the right direction? Plus, all of the modern world depends on the unassuming research of Maxwell, a Scottish scientist, trying to formulate equations to describe electromagnetism. Who would have foreseen the ramifications of that? The mathematician Hardy is famous for claiming that his research in number theory was pure, and would never find applications, yet it is now essential to encryption and security in computing.

The title of the book contains the word "Manifesto." Although it is not strictly a manifesto in the sense of a numbered list of prescriptions, it contains many indicators of when scientists need to get active, why it is essential to do so, and how to do that. There are also many case histories of campaigns that were successful, or, in the funding case, more successful than doing nothing. There are web sites, ways of spreading the message, and examples of scientists who successfully tackled poor science in the media.

I don't agree with everything in the book. The GM scare wasn't only about creating "monsters", it was also about large corporations like Monsanto selling seed that would grow crops, but would then not allow the growers to harvest fertile seeds themselves, creating a monopoly for Monsanto. Also, The Times has a supplement called Eureka that Henderson regards as good scientific reporting, whereas I, as a scientist, find that Ben Miller's column in it is the only bit worth reading.

However, overall, this is an important book, and I hope it gets a large audience. Well done, Mark!

If you're a fan of grumpy rationalists, consider yourself a child of the enlightenment, and choke on your muesli when you hear another government spokesman misrepresenting evidence, then you'll love this book. If, on the other hand, none of the above apply to you, your really *need* to read this book! My favourite chapters were on economics and on education, but there's lots here for you if you're interested in science and medicine, a la Ben Goldacre, or politics and the environment, too. I found the opening couple of chapters a bit too polemical and repetitious, but the rest of the book is very lucid and substantial. Buy a copy for your MP!