realthog: (Jim's bear pic)
realthog ([personal profile] realthog) wrote2008-04-07 07:10 pm

the liars strike


I posted a short while ago about the kind review Jeff VanderMeer has given to my books Discarded Science and Corrupted Science.

The site (it's the official Amazon book blog) has already been polluted by a religious zealot, who writes (http://www.omnivoracious.com/2008/04/what-do-you-fin.html):

FredTownWard on
April 07, 2008 at 03:44 PM

The trouble is that unless the critical reviewers on Amazon are simply making things up, John Grant is guiltier of injecting "fraud, ideology, and politics" into science than most of the people he is writing about. 

It is one thing to take a scientifically skeptical attitude towards Creation Science (though in fairness one should apply the same standards to Evolution), it is quite another to engage it anti-Christian bigotry, as John Grant is accused of doing in several reviews. 

Moreover, if Mr. Grant has championed, as he is accused of championing in those critical reviews, the leftwing lunatic fringe ravings about WMD's and al Qaeda in Iraq, the Nazi-like viewpoint on (no longer required because of recent breakthroughs in adult stem-cell research) embryonic stem-cell research, and the cult-like "science has reached a consensus" attitude regarding Global Warming skeptics,

then he is as bad as or worse than anyone he condemns.

In fact, about two of the 14 or so Amazon reviewers play the fundamentalist card. Of those two, one has very obviously not read the book. So this guy (I try to think of a kinder word) lies.

Yep. How would Jesus lie?




[identity profile] pgtremblay.livejournal.com 2008-04-08 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
Ug.

Well, if you get fundamentalists slamming you, it means you're doing something right!

[identity profile] realthog.livejournal.com 2008-04-08 01:40 pm (UTC)(link)

"if you get fundamentalists slamming you, it means you're doing something right!"

Friends keep telling me this, and of course it's true. At the same time, though, it's so depressing to keep running smack into the forces of unreason the whole time. I mean, this guy hasn't read and clearly has no intention of reading the books, yet he's made up his mind in detail about their contents based on a couple of reviews clearly written with an ideological agenda in mind. He goes straight past a fair number of other reviews, which say something entirely different.

Is it any wonder that someone so doggedly intent on maintaining his own ignorance thinks that things like the lack of WMDs in Iraq are "leftwing lunatic fringe ravings", that concern about global warming is just a great big conspiracy, that the Darwinian mechanism of Evolution has not been subjected to scientific testing for well over a century, or that Creationist mythology and Darwinian Evolution are somehow equally balanced counterparts?

dumb and dumber

[identity profile] scottakennedy.livejournal.com 2008-04-08 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
There really is no limit to ignorance. A friend of mine, who's a theater director, not to long ago went to the Creation Museum (just for his own entertainment). He summed up the whole experience in one conversation between a mother and daughter he overhead while looking at the Noah's Ark exhibit:

Daughter (20ish): Momma, was Jesus on the ark?
Mother (40ish): If you'd read your bible, you'd know Jesus came before.

And there you have it. Modern American ignorance at its finest.

Re: dumb and dumber

[identity profile] realthog.livejournal.com 2008-04-08 05:01 pm (UTC)(link)

That is very, very funny, Scott!

(Anonymous) 2008-04-08 05:17 pm (UTC)(link)
That's the official Amazon book blog, btw, not my personal blog. That guy posts on any post on the Amazon book blog that has anything on it that's at all considered left of center.

I thought much smarmier was the one Amazon review of your book that sneakily tried to disguise itself as being reasonable.

JeffV

[identity profile] realthog.livejournal.com 2008-04-08 05:33 pm (UTC)(link)


"That's the official Amazon book blog, btw, not my personal blog."

Thanks for the correction, Jeff, and for the info on the commenter: it's kind of a relief to find I'm not the only one who suffers from him!

"the one Amazon review of your book that sneakily tried to disguise itself as being reasonable"

The one by the guy who applauds me for correcting misimpressions about Galileo and Bruno and then goes into a long rant about how I should have given a free ride to the "Darwin doubters", you mean? I hadn't seen that one until just now.

There was one other critical reviewer who had genuine difficulties with some of the "faith" aspects of that book, Discarded Science, but he spelled out why in a perfectly reasonable fashion so I had no objections at all to his comments. He seems to have removed his review, though -- which is a pity, as perhaps it might have served as an example to other "faith-based readers" that when you seek to review books you should actually, like, review them.

[identity profile] realthog.livejournal.com 2008-04-08 08:07 pm (UTC)(link)

"He seems to have removed his review"

Oh, hang on a moment: I've found it. Looks like it served as the basis for the two fundies who didn't trouble to read the book before "reviewing" it.

[identity profile] sarcobatus.livejournal.com 2008-04-09 02:53 pm (UTC)(link)
The trolls come out en masse at Amazon.

I approve of your new user pic, btw. The really scary news is that you could be a member of my family, Paul, you resemble us so much, especially my dad's side of the fam! (Do I hear screaming in the distance...?)

[identity profile] realthog.livejournal.com 2008-04-09 03:12 pm (UTC)(link)

"The trolls come out en masse at Amazon."

They do, don't they? A friend got interested enough in this particular troll that he googled him, and found out all sorts of Amazing Stuff.

Inspired, I tried some googling too, unknowingly using a slightly different search string. What this revealed that my pal hadn't across was the troll's spirited plea for Republicans to do the right thing over the Mark Foley affair; i.e., blame the Democrats, whose fault it obviously was. Even his pals on the right-wing forum where I discovered this were telling him not to be so bloody stupid.

"you resemble us so much"

All furry and curled up in the sun by the window, you mean?

[identity profile] sarcobatus.livejournal.com 2008-04-09 03:35 pm (UTC)(link)
"All furry and curled up in the sun by the window, you mean?"

That too, lol!

ext_13461: Foxes Frolicing (Default)

[identity profile] al-zorra.livejournal.com 2008-04-08 05:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Good Grief!

It's so depressing, teh ignorance.

Determined, chosen ignorance.

Love, C.