Science Left Behind
Feel-Good Fallacies and the Rise of the Anti-Scientific Left
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
To listen to most pundits and political writers, evolution, stem cells, and climate change are the only scientific issues worth mentioning -- and the only people who are anti-science are conservatives. Yet those on the left have numerous fallacies of their own. Aversion to clean energy programs, basic biological research, and even life-saving vaccines come naturally to many progressives. These are positions supported by little more than junk-science and paranoid thinking.
Now for the first time, science writers Dr. Alex B. Berezow and Hank Campbell have drawn open the curtain on the left's fear of science. As Science Left Behind reveals, vague inclinations about the wholesomeness of all things natural, the unhealthiness of the unnatural, and many other seductive fallacies have led to an epidemic of misinformation. The results: public health crises, damaging and misguided policies, and worst of all, a new culture war over basic scientific facts -- in which the left is just as culpable as the right.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This joint effort from microbiologist Berezow and Campbell, editor and founder of Science 2.0, begins by decrying 2007's "Progressive War on Spoons," an ostensibly eco-friendly initiative championed by Congressional democrats to "Green the Capitol," but which ended up wasting money and being incredibly inefficient. From there, the duo addresses a broad range of subjects in layman's prose in an effort to educate, elucidate, and enrage readers about the misinformed science of the Left. Berezow and Campbell do not deny that the Right is similarly ignorant. Thus, while their politics skew towards the conservative, their nonpartisan message is clear: Washington as a whole is woefully uninformed when it comes to the scientific underpinnings of pertinent topics like stem cell research, green energy, organic food, vaccines, and gender issues (addressed in a chapter absurdly titled "Boys Have Wee-Wees and Girls Have Hoo-Hoos"). While frequently illuminating, Berezow and Campbell employ sweeping generalizations (e.g., "n truth, Europe is a nice place. European countries have good food.") that often undermine convincing arguments. And their list of 12 issues that would require a blend of science and politics is underwhelming among them: "Managing resources efficiently" and "Addressing global poverty."
