Very much enjoyed Bogus Science; from your introductory chapter which catalogs some of the frightful things that apparently educated and industrialized persons believe, well, I was on board at that point. I used to teach English composition and I spent most of the time TRYING to get across the need to students for them to use critical thinking.
For what it's worth, I offer my own experience, in relation to some of what is set forth in your book, Bogus Science. I always found that when starting at a basic level of pointing out logical fallacies in commercials and print advertisements, there was a "so-what" factor because my students had already assumed that all advertising was by definition filled with nothing but false statements. However, when the same logical fallacies appeared in a book, a newspaper article, a magazine, etc., they were very often readily accepted without question by students. Horrifying.
In Bogus Science, you make a point, when discussing the Bermuda Triangle, that not everyone has the means, the time, the patience, to refute every crackpot illogical idea that poses as science. Further, that because of the nature of the SOURCE of such bogus science (my invisible friend Binky, my personal contact from Atlantis, etc.) it is very difficult, if possible, to take on the prospect of any type of attempted scientific verification of "foundation" ideas of bogus science. I agree, and am much more frustrated than you seem to have been by these problems. There are sections of your book which catalog bogus science ideas which on the whole are so preposterous as to warrant nothing more than their collected restatement (reprinting) as a rebuttal. I am not accusing you of the same practice that the bogus science lovers engage in, thereby outpacing scientific scrutiny or testing merely by assembling all the "unexplained" into a compendium, as if to say, "if there's THIS MUCH unexplained stuff going on out there, then SURELY there's something to it..." (a scary twin of the "20 million people can't be wrong" advertising claim). I do wish that, for many of the minor or detour-level bogus science ideas, you had had the space and time to (patiently, and without the smug chuckling which I credit your book with avoiding) to skewer them as thoroughly as you do, for example, the flat-earth-ers. My personal hobby horse is spontaneous combustion; despite all the bogus science you've seen or heard in writing your books, you might still be surprised at the acceptance of this idea.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and have just passed it off to a friend and recommended it to others! Quentin Daniels Jackson, MS
My Bogus Science wishlist
Very much enjoyed Bogus Science; from your introductory chapter which catalogs some of the frightful things that apparently educated and industrialized persons believe, well, I was on board at that point. I used to teach English composition and I spent most of the time TRYING to get across the need to students for them to use critical thinking.
For what it's worth, I offer my own experience, in relation to some of what is set forth in your book, Bogus Science. I always found that when starting at a basic level of pointing out logical fallacies in commercials and print advertisements, there was a "so-what" factor because my students had already assumed that all advertising was by definition filled with nothing but false statements. However, when the same logical fallacies appeared in a book, a newspaper article, a magazine, etc., they were very often readily accepted without question
by students. Horrifying.
In Bogus Science, you make a point, when discussing the Bermuda Triangle, that not everyone has the means, the time, the patience, to refute every crackpot illogical idea that poses as science. Further, that because of the nature of the SOURCE of such bogus science (my invisible friend Binky, my personal contact from Atlantis, etc.) it is very difficult, if possible, to take on the prospect of any type of attempted scientific verification of "foundation" ideas of bogus science. I agree, and am much more frustrated than you seem to have been by these problems.
There are sections of your book which catalog bogus science ideas which on the whole are so preposterous as to warrant nothing more than their collected restatement (reprinting) as a rebuttal. I am not accusing you of the same practice that the bogus science lovers engage in, thereby outpacing scientific scrutiny or testing merely by assembling all the "unexplained" into a compendium, as if to say, "if there's THIS MUCH unexplained stuff going on out there, then SURELY there's something to it..." (a scary twin of the "20 million people can't be wrong" advertising claim). I do wish that, for many of the minor or detour-level bogus science ideas, you had had the space and time to (patiently, and without the smug chuckling which I credit your book with avoiding) to skewer them as thoroughly as you do, for example, the flat-earth-ers.
My personal hobby horse is spontaneous combustion; despite all the bogus science you've seen or heard in writing your books, you might still be surprised at the acceptance of this idea.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and have just passed it off to a friend and recommended it to others!
Quentin Daniels
Jackson, MS