Synopsis
We pride ourselves on the scientific culture in which we live, but is it really so scientific? Is it not the truth that large parts of our society are awash with ideas and preconceptions that could not be farther divorced from science, even though often they're wrongly or fraudulently described as "scientific"?
John Grant, author of the highly successful Discarded Science: Ideas that Seemed Good at the Time and Corrupted Science: Fraud, Ideology and Politics in Science, now turns his attention to "ideas that fool some of the people all of the time." He considers why it matters that our culture is being drowned in an ocean of the irrational, from pyramidology to beliefs that the earth is stationary, hollow or flat, from the widespread but misplaced certainty that establishment science is suppressing antigravity research to the quest for bigfoot, Atlantis, perpetual-motion machines and humanoid features on the surface of Mars.
In a text full of witty observations, delightful asides and deft skewerings, he is unafraid to speak truth to some of our most powerful false beliefs.