Customer Reviews

Counterknowledge

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I wanted to like this book more than I did. But Damian Thompson was not a particularly appealing advocate for the forces of reason. His tone throughout is one of self-righteous superiority, with the result that after a couple of chapters, it's like being trapped at a dinner party with a know-it-all guest - you don't care how right he is - you just wish he'd shut up already.

Not that his targets aren't worthy. They fall into three main categories: pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and what might be thought of as examples of "popular delusions and the madness of crowds". Thompson gives particular scrutiny to:

# Creation "science" , "intelligent design" and the assorted shenanigans of evolution-bashers.
# The prevalence of untested, unproven "alternative therapies" (which he refers to as "Quack remedies"), from homeopathy to reflexology to aromatherapy.
# Assorted conspiracy theories (primarily related to 9/11)
# Examples of "pseudohistory": Jesus's lovechild survives, but the Catholic Church maintains a conspiracy of silence. The Phoenicians/Israelites/Celts/Greeks/Vikings/Chinese discovered America in (choose your pre-Columbus date). Aliens (or technologically super-savvy ancient civilizations) roamed the earth, building the pyramids and Mayan temples until perishing in the lost city of Atlantis!
# Marketing phenomena such as "The Secret", dubious dietary supplements, QLink bracelets with crystal-based 'healing powers'.

All of this makes Thompson righteously indignant. And I'm certainly not going to defend any of them here - indeed, all this bogus 'knowledge', shoddy scholarship, and fuzzy thinking does deserve our skepticism, at times our condemnation. But from a purely pragmatic point of view, Thompson would be more persuasive if he didn't wax quite so white-hot indignant about each and every example he cites. After all, not every example of 'counterknowledge' has equally serious consequences - some are considerably more damaging than others. Bogus science which denies the link between HIV and AIDS, or which makes unwarranted claims about a putative link between MMR vaccination and autism is clearly actively dangerous, as it can cause people to avoid therapies proven to be beneficial. Those who promulgate this kind of misinformation, in the service of their own political or profit-driven agenda, deserve to be challenged and possibly earn our moral censure. But no matter how much the success of Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret" or Gavin Menzies's "1421: The Year China Discovered America" might irritate Thompson (and clearly, it does!), it is hard to see these books as being quite as dangerous or reprehensible as,say, holocaust denial used to foment anti-Semitism or the South African government's distortion of information related to the cause of AIDS.

Thompson's uncalibrated indignation has the unfortunate side-effect of suggesting that every instance of 'counterknowledge' deserves equal condemnation, which ultimately hurts his argument, though not fatally. A far more serious flaw throughout the book is what I can only term a persistent anti-Islamic strain, which is hard to ignore, and seems particularly unfortunate given the author's position as editor-in-chief of The Catholic Herald .

For instance, Thompson claims that "Islamic Creationism is turning into a serious problem for British sixth-form colleges and universities", but fails to substantiate this claim with anything but the flimsiest of anecdotal evidence. He goes on to assert that the damage of Creation Science is limited within the United States because it is still "essentially located within the American cultic milieu", while "Islamic creationism" by contrast is a unified and increasingly influential component of a wider Islamic worldview". Which might be OK if he didn't then go on to establish that almost all of the anti-Darwinist propaganda promulgated in the name of Islam is the product of a single individual. In these sections Thompson appears clearly guilty of applying differential standards of evidence to support his claims.

In the end, the most useful part of this book was the "Further Reading" section that concludes it.

In Counterknowledge, Damian Thompson takes on Holocaust deniers, homeopathic medicine, alternate historians, and creationists and shows how they use books, the media, and the internet to disseminate disinformation. The author is from the UK, so most of the examples he gives come from Britain or the US. His book reveals that there are many people to be critical of, but he does seem to harp on some more than others: for example, he repeatedly chastises Dan Brown of Davinci Code fame for contributing to the proliferation of inaccurate revisionist history - Davinci Code is FICTION!

Thompson makes little more than a token effort at making suggestions to fight the proliferation of counterknowledge. He suggests exposing frauds through internet blogs, but this strikes me as preaching to the choir - a person reading a blog for skeptics is unlikely to believe the counterknowledge anyway.

Though portions of the book are interesting (particularly the section on alternative medicine), the writing style is very, very dry. As a result, the people who most need to hear what he has to say never will because they will never make it through this book. Although short, it is plodding.

This is a book about pseudoscience, pseudohistory, health quackery, fear mongering and false knowledge. Thompson cites instances of shallow inquiries, collateral and advantageous spread of low caliber information, unsubstantiated assertions and pseudoauthority. He writes about holocaust denial, pre-Columbian discovery of America by the Chinese, Da Vinci code, evolution vs. creation controversy, and ostensible MMR-autism link. He details the existence of proponents with academic sounding qualifications and even universities with dubious standards. He laments the general gullibility of the public. This is a well-referenced small fonted 162 page book. Alas, there is no index!

I tend to be not so harsh about the lacunae in this book. Of course, Thompson has not produced an encyclopedic work on anti- knowledge; there are gaps, indeed. For example his chapter on "Desperate Remedies" discusses alternative medicine, homeopathy, chiropractic and nutritional therapies in a negative vein. His stand is not only supportable but also not inaccurate in general. He leaves traditional allopathic medicine broadly unassailed. This position, however, is not entirely neutral in my opinion.

We, physicians who practice traditional, not alternative, medicine, were eager to use hormone therapy. We created diseases based on trivial or incidental imaging data or social inconveniences. The harms brought about by hormone therapy, by unnecessary surgeries based on incidental MRI findings or filthy profits gained by overtreatment without strong evidence are well-known by now. Books by Marcia Angell ("The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It") or Melody Petersen ("Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs") draw a much better picture of what is not so correct or healthy about the knowledge base with which current medical orthodoxy operates. These weaknesses are also products of counterknowledge, but Thompson does not discuss them in any detail. Is it because these are not considered "alternative?"

If it is pseudoscience, in general, that one wishes to bemoan then I recommend an earlier work by Charles Winn and Arthur Wiggins ("Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends...and Pseudoscience Begins"). This is a complementary and humorous account about pseudoscience; it delves into specifics of fallacies and illogic extant in contemporary thinking.

Thus, there is some stale repetition of topics already well-covered by others; nevertheless this book will serve those who are not experts in every arena where counterknowledge is likely to be hiding and thriving. This is a lean cautionary smorgasbord. There is something for everyone - that is the strength of Thompson's book. I enjoyed reading about pseudohistory, an area of unfamiliarity to me. There were a few noteworthy passages. Here is one from the last chapter titled, "Living with Counterknowledge": ..."The practitioners of counterknowledge teach us that the universe is not arbitrary, that things happen for a reason."

A random and arbitrary world is a frightening concept for those of us with weaker constitutions; this fear is perhaps the sustaining force of counterknowledge.

"First you decide what you believe, then you find the evidence, brushing aside anything that doesn't fit," writes Thompson in explaining how irrational beliefs develop.

Logic is the ideal way to unmask the bunco artists of the modern world. So, how does a modern Don Quixote challenge the windmills of superstition, nonsense and lies of zealots, crackpots, frauds and government bureaucrats?

This book is a great answer. It is a marvelous collection of fads, fallacies, farces and frauds in the name of science, religion, medicine and every other modern topic. Thompson does a masterful job in exposing the myriad phantasies of the modern world; however, even the best of logic cannot overcome the delusions of true believers.

Folly is usually the result of stupidity or cupidity.

For example: Tobacco is harmful to one's health. The British health ministry knew this by 1956; but any warning was vetoed by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan "because the Treasury believed the revenue from cigarette taxation was too important to be put at risk." (This direct quote is from John Kay, the Financial Times, June 4, 2008)

Government officials took the attitude, "We lied to you for our own good. Now trust us." President George W. Bush used a similar rationale of "lying to Americans for our own good" to generate fear about Weapons of Mass Destruction and thus justify his war on Iraq.

Since governments lie, why should people trust official government statements? Likewise, why trust an expert doctor who diagnoses cancer? This legacy of distrust by official sources is why some people trust quacks and charlatans more than experts for simple answers to complex issues.

Actually, the desire for simple solutions goes back at least to the legend of Alexander the Great and the Gordian Knot - - the ultimate simple but irrelevant solution to a complex problem. In today's world, Creationism is the simple answer vs. the complexities of the math and physics of Quarks and/or Superstring theories.

The practical person, more so in modern American than in Alexander's time, is admired. Instead of untying the long complex knowledge-knot of cancer, it's easier to trust the counterknowledge of a quack-with-a-pill than a doctor with a complicated diagnosis. Since government officials tell lies or deliberately bury the truth, it's hardly surprising that some suspect the World Trade Center attacks are an American government plot?

Some people want quick and easy answers. As Thompson clearly shows, there's always someone who "knows about a secret little shortcut". This book is a first-class debunking of today's popular bunk and bunco artists.

It's a marvelous roadmap of modern gullibility. It is concise, readable, straightforward and packed with logic. For that reason, it should be read by everyone; for that reason, sadly, only the intelligent will find it interesting. It's simply too logical, too rational, too good, to become a best seller.

As such, it's a pity. The book is excellent; being so, it will only appeal to readers who don't believe in fads, fallacies, cults and things-that-go-bump-in-the-night. It's truly an example of offering gems to the literate audience . . . Let's hope there's enough rational people left to make it a best seller.

Thompson fails to provide an answer to one of the most interesting questions about conspiracy theories: why are particular theories more plausible to some individuals over others? Thompson's answer is that people believe in counterknowledge - a convenient 'catch-all' term for quite diverse beliefs - because they are delusional, ignorant, paranoid antisocials. Because Thompson characterizes individuals who believe in counterknowledge as indiscriminate - belief in one conspiracy theory guarantees endorsement of all - he misses the ways in which specific experiences make certain conspiracy theories more plausible than others. There are ample reasons why, for example, African-Americans should find a man-made cause for HIV plausible (the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, to mention only the most infamous). To Thompson, however, if you believe in this theory, your cognitive limitations must also lead you to believe in acupuncturists, alien abductions, homeopaths, and the MI5 assassination of Diana. In short, the specific reasons why certain conspiracies are plausible to particular groups of people is NOT the subject of this book. Rather, Thompson pleases himself and his fans by taking broad cheap shots at easy targets and conveniently excluding the Catholic Church from his analysis of counterknowledge. As the editor in chief of a Catholic magazine, I might not be surprised. As a fellow alumnus of the London School of Economics, I am embarrassed and disappointed.

A brisk, rude review of the many faces of intellectual adolescence.

As an erstwhile fan of Erich von Daniken, the amazing Kreskin, and spoon benders of all types, I appreciate Thompson's debunkings. Attraction to counterknowledge is a natural and healthy expression of a young person's curiosity, just as attraction to astrology was a natural expression of a young culture's exploration of the heavens. Comes a time, though, to replace fantasy with fact-based hypotheses, astrology with astronomy. People and cultures who decline to do so are doomed to perpetual adolescence and irrelevance.

A full chapter on the tail-chasing narcissism that is deconstruction would have been welcome. All those hours as an undergrad laboring over Derrida--my god, what a waste of time and brainspace that was! Twenty years later, as biology and cosmology have made huge strides, I see that English grad students are still rehearsing the same tired arguments of the postmodern sophists.

While some of the material presented in this book is both fascinating and disturbing (such as the statistics regarding the prevalence of creationists and holocaust deniers worldwide), the supporting do emendation is slipshod at best. The book comes in at less than 140 pages, hardly enough to do justice to the alarming phenomenon of belief in conspiracy theories, homeopathic medicine, creationist biology as well as other counter factual beliefs. The author would do well to more extensively catalogue instances of these issues.

I borrowed a copy of this book from the public library a couple of years ago, and when I read it, I was very disappointed with the author's attitude toward homeopathy.

I have been having homeopathy for the past few years, and, to be honest, I feel much better (both physically and mentally) now than I ever did before I started homeopathy. Before I started homeopathy, I have both a very dysfunctional immune system and Asperger's Syndrome, and, so far, homeopathy is the only thing that has given me any reason for hope.

As for the idea of vaccinations causing autism, I haven't yet come to any conclusion one way or the other on that one. However, if it happens that there really are cases of autism being triggered by vaccinations (or the heavy metals that are in vaccinations), the problem may not be the vaccinations themselves, or even the heavy metals that are in them, but the dysfunctional immune systems that many autistic people have. It may be just like the severe nut allergies that some people have. In cases in which the individuals will become very ill after eating a nut, or something with nuts in it, the problem is not the nuts themselves, but the dysfunctional immune system that those individuals have.

To be honest, it really disappoints me when people speak out against homeopathy, because homeopathy is the only thing that has given me any hope (or even any glimmer of hope) for a better immune system, and also for a brain that works better.

Mr. Thompson provides a compact (undiluted he might say) view into the quackery and pseudo-knowledge that is a growing trend throughout the world. He doesn't pull punches and he calls out the false historians, conspiracy theorists, bogus medical advisers, and delusional self-appointed experts for not using empirical evidence to justify their claims. It's well worth the (brief) time it takes to read this, and if you have any appreciation for the debunking of fraudsters, you'll get more than a few laughs along the way.

Damion Thompson comes off sound like as much of a quack as the quacks he is trying to debunk. He is just full of piss and vinegar, lives in a small and dull world and wants us all to join him there. His evidence is mainstream and he always takes the safe view despite any evidence. David Aaronovitch is a much better debunker of what Damion terms counterknowledge. Damion seems to have only done about half of his homework and his arguments are based more on emotion than reason or evidence. Check out David Aaronovich's book for a better knowledge base. Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History