Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future

By Donald R. Prothero, Pat Linse and Michael Shermer

The battles over evolution, climate change, childhood vaccinations, and the causes of AIDS, alternative medicine, oil shortages, population growth, and the place of science in our country—all are reaching a fevered pitch. Many people and institutions have exerted enormous efforts to misrepresent or flatly deny demonstrable scientific reality to protect their nonscientific ideology, their power, or their bottom line. To shed light on this darkness, Donald R. Prothero explains the scientific process and why society has come to rely on science not only to provide a better life but also to reach verifiable truths no other method can obtain. He describes how major scientific ideas that are accepted by the entire scientific community (evolution, anthropogenic global warming, vaccination, the HIV cause of AIDS, and others) have been attacked with totally unscientific arguments and methods. Prothero argues that science deniers pose a serious threat to society, as their attempts to subvert the truth have resulted in widespread scientific ignorance, increased risk of global catastrophes, and deaths due to the spread of diseases that could have been prevented.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Release date: Aug 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780253010360

Donald R. Prothero

Donald R. Prothero specializes in physics, planetary sciences, astronomy, earth sciences, and vertebrate paleontology. He has taught for more than thirty years at the college level, including at Columbia, Knox, Pierce, Vassar, and the California Institute of Technology. He has authored or edited more than three hundred scientific papers and thirty books, including Giants of the Lost World: Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Monsters of South America.

Reviews for Reality Check

[devil_llama · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A solid look at science denial, where it comes from, and what the effect is on policy. The author looks not only at the evolution wars and global warming, but also discusses such topics as second hand smoke, anti-vaxxers, and cheap oil. He includes such all time favorites as astrology and other psychic phenomenon. He also includes a chapter on overpopulation and how our belief that human ingenuity can solve all resource problems is short-sighted and dangerous. He doesn't pull any punches. Written with an easy style, statistics just at the level of the bright high school senior, and carefully researched. I will recommend this to my students. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, however, there were some serious editing problems with it. Even if publisher's aren't doing a good job editing books these days, one would think an author with these credentials could manage to spot most of them in a proof copy. Half star lost for poor editing.

[quantum_flapdoodle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A solid look at science denial, where it comes from, and what the effect is on policy. The author looks not only at the evolution wars and global warming, but also discusses such topics as second hand smoke, anti-vaxxers, and cheap oil. He includes such all time favorites as astrology and other psychic phenomenon. He also includes a chapter on overpopulation and how our belief that human ingenuity can solve all resource problems is short-sighted and dangerous. He doesn't pull any punches. Written with an easy style, statistics just at the level of the bright high school senior, and carefully researched. I will recommend this to my students. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, however, there were some serious editing problems with it. Even if publisher's aren't doing a good job editing books these days, one would think an author with these credentials could manage to spot most of them in a proof copy. Half star lost for poor editing.