2009-07-12-A Book Review - Unscientific America

2009-07-12 Daily Kos/DarkSyde Daily Kos \Unscientific America\book reviews http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/12/85744/9954?detail=f Book Review: Unscientific America Book Review - Unscientific America  Unscientific America by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum is a must read for anyone who cares about understanding or reversing the long national slide into pseudoscience and willful ignorance that has periodically gripped America. The book neatly follows up Mooney's best seller, The Republican War on Science, into a broader, nonpartisan narrative of an entire nation enamored by the nifty gizmos and life saving applications of science, yet saddled with a long history of anti-intellectualism that periodically spills over into open contempt. It's a dose of stiff but sorely needed medicine for baby boomers and genx'ers who grew up during a short thaw in that icy antiscience trend by way of a cold war, a hot space race, and one great communicator named Carl Sagan.

The book is full of delightfully written examples of assaults on science, each ripe with opportunity for anyone wise enough to seize it. The demotion of Pluto produced sacks of angry mail, and ignited a wave of interest in planetary astronomy from kindergartens to grad schools. Hollywood needlessly butchers science and scientists on the alter of cinematic appeal, but special effects wizardry in movies like Jurassic Park by-passed the usual media filters and stereotypes to kick-start a whole new generation of paleontologists and geneticists. The Bush administration's authoritarian disregard for science was legendary, but it galvanized the scientific community into action like no other Presidency.

Enter the era of cable television and the Internet: alas, as the book honestly explains, in today's fractured information landscape, science friendly mags, TV programs, and blogs are preaching to the choir. It's just as easy, if not more so, for a creationist or moon landing hoaxer to find websites that cater to their predispositions as it is to find Science Blogs or Discover Online.

&ldquo;Unscientific America by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum is a must read for anyone who cares about understanding or reversing the long national slide into pseudoscience and willful ignorance that has periodically gripped America.&rdquo;   