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Science Left Behind: Feel-Good Fallacies And The Rise Of The Anti-Scientific Left (2012)

by Hank Campbell(Favorite Author)

3.39 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1610391640 (ISBN13: 9781610391641)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

PublicAffairs

review 1: The authors set out to prove that conservatives aren't anti-science, but in fact, progressives are anti-science. They explain the science and economics of organic food, GMO's, vaccines, clean energy, creationism, ANWR, pharmaceutical research and gender studies. I found this book very interesting, even though I don't consider myself in the science realm. Science has been co-opted by politics and that's not good for the public.
review 2: Extremely helpful book. The purpose of the book is to show that conservatives on the far right who deny evolution and climate change do not hold a monopoly on anti-scientific thought, explaining how knee-jerk beliefs that everything natural is wholesome and therefore everything unnatural is unwholesome, and failure to corre... morectly assess risk have led to political standpoints on the left that are often unfounded on any true science (such as the backlash against vaccination). I liked that the book provided a framework to help me understand how the history and politics of various scientific issues have contributed to the attitudes of people in different political groups, in particular, “progressives.” I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I didn’t really have any idea what a progressive was before I read the book. I kind of always thought “Oh progress…progress is good” …but that’s not really how the term is used politically. To understand the term as used in this book, imagine a graph, where the x-axis is a measure of belief in economic autonomy, with economic freedom to the right and economic authoritarianism to the left, and the y-axis is a measure of social freedom, with authoritarianism on the positive side and social freedom on the negative side. (You can think, in both cases of the “authoritarianism” being a bit of a person’s belief in the government’s role in regulating either economics or social behavior.) This gives you conservatives in the upper right, libertarians lower right, liberals lower left, and progressives upper left. So while liberals/left in general believes in the importance of the government to help society, progressives in particular believe in the power of government to regulate social behavior to accomplish a better world. Progressive ideals can be helpful (seat belts, national parks), but they can also go overboard (prohibiting 16-oz sodas [or for that matter, Prohibition!]). I could change my mind all day about where to draw the line (my understanding is that some smokers who were mad when NYC bars went nonsmoking are now publicly thanking Michael Bloomberg…), but it was helpful to me to understand those kinds of ideas as stemming from progressive ideals. The problem is that progressive ideals are often positive (protect the environment, keep food safe, improve education) but some of the policies implemented to advance the ideals are not based on science and in the end can backfire. I now better understand why I have so often felt conflicted when reading about science and science policy…..I think it’s because a lot of times I sense that a policy is stupid but appreciate the ideal and it’s often hard to pinpoint how the policy is wrong, exactly, especially given how difficult it can be to find unbiased information on a topic.There are still areas of the book that I want to research further. For example, the authors talk quite a bit about genetically modified foods and how they are completely safe for human consumption. Fine, I agree; I don’t have an issue with GMOs. But I thought the more important argument against them was about concerns for GMOs hybridizing with natural plants (this may not be the right terminology) and potentially reducing agricultural species diversity, topics which are not addressed. Are those just ‘more progressive paranoia’? I don’t know the answer. I do agree, however, that as a WORLD, it seems likely that GMOs are the best way to feed the entire world without converting more land to cropland (since organic farming is less efficient)…and if we could minimize famines and improve food access we’d have a better chance of leveling off population growth since people would feel more prosperous which typically reduces birth rate, thereby reducing potential for future famine. So, seems like a win-win. If you insist on all-natural, always organic, you are going to have to expand cropland, which is going to destroy wildlife, etc., along the way…you can’t have it both ways.I thought that a section on Big Pharma was mostly accurate (based on my employment therein) but it had some material about ghostwriting and journals becoming “information laundering operations for the pharma industry” that seemed out of date to me. The relevant section seems based mostly on a 2011 article in the UK periodical the Guardian….and perhaps the article was reporting on the past and industry’s efforts to improve (because the issues are OLD NEWS and most pharma companies have put in elaborate policies to address these issues…), but the authors didn’t make that clear. That made me wonder about other potential inaccuracies. In any case, it’s a very interesting book…..I recommend it highly to anyone who loves science and believes in the separation of science and state, so to speak! (Unlike the separation of church and state, in which the concern is that church will “poison” the state, the concern here is that the state is poisoning science!) Topics covered:• Vaccines• Big Pharma, alternative medicine• Animal research• Embryonic stem cell research• Renewable energy, nuclear energy, fossil fuels • Issues with electric cars (the big duh has always been: well, if your electricity is still from coal, it’s not really causing less emission, now, is it?)• GMOs, organic farming, raw food/barefoot running• Why population growth might realistically level off at 9 billion• Progressive ideas about (lack of) gender differences • American dominance in science (partly because we are a free country and people are free to think crazy thoughts….good science less likely to come out of countries with dictatorships)• Interesting info about education and how American students have improved in international comparisons since implementation of NCLB. How is it that our science education has been called dismal for years and years and years but we continue to lead the world in Nobel prizes and peer-reviewed research? Appears that a major issue on those international comparisons is that Americans tend to value teaching critical thinking over teaching facts—which is why we do well in creative endeavors but can’t find Iraq on a map. NCLB seems to be working as far as improving American students’ knowledge compared to that of students in other countries. But the educational community still hates it. • Death of science journalism (replaced in large part with progressive activism)• 12 issues to consider for future less

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