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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Silver Falls Library | 001.96 THOMPSON | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | 001.96 Thompson, D. 2008 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
We are being swamped with dangerous nonsense. From 9/11 conspiracy theories to Holocaust denial to alternative medicine, we are all experiencing an epidemic of demonstrably untrue descriptions of the world. For Damian Thompson, the misinformation industry is wreaking havoc on the once-lauded virtues of science and reason. Unproven theories and spurious claims are forms of "counterknowledge," and, helped by the Internet, they are creating a global generation of misguided adherents who repeat these untruths and lend them credence. Thompson explores our readiness to accept falsehoods and the viral role of technology in spreading quack remedies, pseudo-history, and creationist fanaticism. Following in the footsteps of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, Sam Harris's The End of Faith, and Christopher Hitchens's God Is Not Great, Counterknowledge is a brilliant defense of scientific proof in an age of fabrication.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
According to Thompson, we are experiencing a pandemic of counterknowledge: misinformation packaged to look like fact, but that is demonstrably false. In rapid-fire prose, Thompson, editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald, examines several cases of counterknowledge, arguing that creationism, conspiracy theories regarding 9/11 and claims linking autism to childhood vaccines have been promoted as factual by respected journalists and publishers. In one example of the power and danger of pseudohistory, Thompson devotes a great deal of effort to take down already much-debunked notions of creationism and Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and the ridicule he heaps on Mormonism explains little about why it is such a rapidly growing religion. He is scandalized that Gavin Menzies's 1421 is heavily promoted by all of Britain's leading chains of bookshops, though Menzies's notion that the Chinese discovered America has been widely derided by historians. Seeing the source of the spread of counterknowledge in the decreasing role of institutions like church and family, and the rise of postmodernism, Thompson sheds much heat but little light on the age-old phenomenon of human gullibility and its exploitation. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
We are drowning in a sea of lies and fakery, aided and abetted by the Internet culture's anything-goes mentality, warns Thompson (Waiting for Antichrist, 2005, etc.). In this slim but tough-minded book, the editor in chief of Britain's Catholic Herald newspaper argues that the Web-enabled proliferation of alternative theories and speculations challenging orthodox beliefs on everything from evolution to 9/11 are nothing short of a looming disaster for civilization. Thompson takes a cold chisel to the fatuous bubbles of pseudo-theories proliferating in the modern mediascape, to devastating effect. Defining counterknowledge as "misinformation packaged to look like fact," he begins to dismantle some of its more popular examples. Keeping his prose cool and level-headed, the author debunks theories ranging from the idea that the U.S. government was behind 9/11 to the surprisingly popular belief that the Chinese (among a host of other nations) landed in North America before Columbus. Not coming from any easily deducible ideological angle, Thompson passionately defends nothing more complicated than factual truth, a concept in danger of being swept away by "a pandemic of credulous thinking." He pushes aside the baseless "theories" behind alternative-medicine hokum and intelligent design by doing something he calls "deeply unfashionable": assuming that when a large number of scientists from varied backgrounds all state something as a proven fact based on empirical evidence, it probably is correct. Showing that fringe quackery has charged unchallenged into the mainstream media and begun bellowing unproven beliefs (Vaccines cause autism! Aromatherapy cures cancer!) to a conspiracy-prone public, Thompson portrays a culture dangerously close to losing touch with reality. The only thing to complain about with this illuminating book is that it isn't long enough to irrefutably knock down each of the baseless ideas the author discusses. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In the genre of skeptical literature, there are books like Richard Roeper's recent Debunked! (2008), or the writings of James Randi: books that debunk pseudoscience, bogus history, charlatans, and the like. There are also books like Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things (1997), and this one, which explore why so many seemingly bright individuals buy into so much rank idiocy. Thompson tackles such notorious foolishness as 9/11 conspiracy theories, satanic ritual abuse, the bafflingly widespread belief that the Chinese discovered America, and other abundantly debunked nonsense, but he tackles it from the point of view of a sociologist. Why do people persist in believing outrageous things when the evidence of their invalidity is so easy to find? Why do people so readily fall for counterknowledge defined as misinformation packaged to look as fact when the actual facts are readily available? And why do people who should know better (in particular, book publishers) treat this garbage as though it didn't stink to high heaven? An important, impassioned addition to the skeptical literature, and a book that makes a significant contribution to the art of critical thinking.--Pitt, David Copyright 2008 Booklist
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgements | p. ix |
| 1 Knowledge and Counterknowledge | p. 1 |
| 2 Creationism and Counterknowledge | p. 24 |
| 3 The Return of Pseudohistory | p. 48 |
| 4 Desperate Remedies | p. 71 |
| 5 The Counterknowledge Industry | p. 94 |
| 6 Living with Counterknowledge | p. 117 |
| Notes | p. 141 |
| Further Reading | p. 157 |