The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science

By Will Storr

While excavating fossils in the tropics of Australia with a celebrity creationist, Will Storr asked himself a simple question. Why don’t facts work? Why, that is, did the obviously intelligent man beside him sincerely believe in Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden and a six-thousand-year-old Earth, in spite of the evidence against them?
It was the start of a journey that would lead Storr all over the world—from Texas to Warsaw to the Outer Hebrides—meeting an extraordinary cast of modern heretics whom he tries his best to understand. Storr tours Holocaust sites with famed denier David Irving and a band of neo-Nazis, experiences his own murder during “past life regression” hypnosis, discusses the looming One World Government an iconic climate skeptic, and investigates the tragic life and death of a woman who believed her parents were high priests in a baby-eating cult.
Using a unique mix of highly personal memoir, investigative journalism, and the latest research from neuroscience and experimental psychology, Storr reveals how the stories we tell ourselves about the world invisibly shape our beliefs, and how the neurological “hero maker” inside us all can so easily lead to self-deception, toxic partisanship and science denial.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Mar 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781468309812

Will Storr

Will Storr is a longform journalist and novelist. His features have appeared in various publications, including Guardian Weekend, The Times Magazine, Observer Magazine, GQ, Marie Claire and the Sydney Morning Herald. He is a contributing editor at Esquire magazine. He has been named New Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year, and has won a National Press Club award for excellence. In 2010, his investigation into the kangaroo meat industry won the Australian Food Media award for Best Investigative Journalism and in 2012, he was presented with the One World Press award and the Amnesty International award for his work on sexual violence against men.

Reviews for The Unpersuadables

[starcat-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Read at work over lunch. I'll probably buy it some time soon, though maybe not in hardcover. A great look at ways the mind makes mistakes, both sympathetic and skeptical. He ranges over a wide field, from homeopathy and Holocaust denial, to psychiatry and the skeptical movement itself. In the last part of the book Storr is on a quest to find proof that James Randi is not all he's made out to be, and of course he finds it. Rather than ridiculing and mocking those with false beliefs, he advocates trying to understand that you can also make egregious errors, that everyone does, and that this is probably not a fixable aspect of human nature. He seems to come down hard on the idea that it is immoral to have false beliefs, and I'll probably be thinking of that for quite a while.4 stars oc

[antao-3 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

One obvious reason for this failure to communicate is the lack of science education beyond school. So that those who didn't succeed at it when young are forever excluded. If chemistry, for example, was offered more as a adult education class science would appear less as an exclusive group that only a small number can be part of.That early ending of science education opens the door very wide for alternative views to gain ground. There is an Australian MOOC’s course provider, open2study that offers beginner courses in chemistry and physics; this is a far better way of increasing understanding, than just telling people they are wrong, and scientists are always right.I'm inclined to agree that moving into dictating lifestyle choices is not a good move, but for me the failure of science to communicate properly was shown most clearly with the five a day campaign for fruit and vegetables.There are extremely sound nutritional reasons for eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, but not once were those very good nutritional reasons put forward, because the assumption was that "ordinary" people wouldn't understand them. So the finger wagging approach was adopted, instead. Had a less patronising method of persuading people, that offered more detailed, and better, reasons, been used, then quite likely it might have generated more interest is science, as well as better understanding of the reasons for eating five a day.It's this "them and us" approach that is the problem, I understand that it is a desire to protect skills and the science "community" itself, by having a closed shop approach, and I understand that the desire to protect theories that have been developed over a long time, might encourage scientists to put up "keep out" signs all over the place.A key cause of public 'scepticism' with science is (I believe) a lack of understanding of how the Scientific Method works.We have the Sunday Papers obsessed with single studies about cancer, heralding a study on the Antarctic (for instance) as proof that AGW is not a problem and fringe groups picking up on a ragtag of studies to prove that GMO causes cancer or vaccines make your kids stupid or fluoride is a government plot.Scientists do sometimes cheat, or perform bad science, or are biased but the scientific method slowly eliminates these in the same way evolution gets rid of dead end designs in nature. Science loves a mystery and if an unusual finding appears in a study others will research it- and if it appears to be basically correct then more studies will build on it- if it is basically flawed it will be forgotten. It is the huge constantly growing 4 dimensional jigsaw puzzle- a scientist may be able to fit a new piece but unless all the sides fit in it may not stay there.A lot comes down to basic science education - we should all leave school knowing what a theory is in the same way we know a noun.But, in the end it also makes it far easier for any charlatan to offer alternative theories.Storr, a piece of advice: crackpots are not scientists.

[scottcholstad · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not impressed. The author seems just as confused as his subjects. Hell, he even occasionally and temporarily buys into their scams and delusions! He just seems like a weak minded, weak willed skeptic who doesn't know what to believe, if anything. Frankly, he seems lacking in intelligence, especially so for one so highly praised. Not recommended.

[kronomlo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Though the author interviews and examines the ideas of people who are into some very..."interesting, subjects, like holocaust deniers, faith healers, and others, he also does the same to the people within the field of skepticism. What I found interesting about this book is that the author points out that even scientific or scientific-minded skeptics can they themselves become over-biased and refuse to look at other perspectives. You even need to be skeptical of skepticism! An interesting examination into a perspective of science that many of us wouldn't consider.

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting investigation into the worlds of assorted skeptics, deniers, and holders of delusions, including creationists, smug atheists, sufferers of the Morgellon itch, paranormal researchers, and Holocaust deniers. Storr is a rationalist but he does a good job of keeping an open mind as he tries to understand why these people think the way they do. What Storr reveals is that rationalists can be as extreme in their narrow-mindedness as any religious fundamentalist, and that he can empathize with the kookiest of the bunch he profiles here, something I doubt I could ever do.

[davidmullen_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Err interesting. This isn't the usual trot through o look at these silly things that stupid people believe type of books it advances the hypothesis that people edit reality so as to make themselves right. The list suspects includes creationists