The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (Politically Incorrect Guides) [Paperback]

Tom Bethell (Author)

Book Description

Series: Politically Incorrect Guides | Publication Date: November 14, 2005

Covers subjects spanning evolution, stem cell research, abortion, HIV/AIDS, global warming,and cloning to help you tune up your baloney detector to expose the liberal, anti-religious propagnada we're being fed.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"If the globe is warming, is mankind responsible, or is the sun?" Such a statement does not appear out of place in Bethell's entertaining account of how modern science is politically motivated and in desperate need of oversight. Bethell writes in a compulsively readable style, and although he provides legitimate insight into the potential benefits of nuclear power and hormesis, some readers will be turned off when he attempts to disprove global warming and especially evolution. Throughout the book, Bethell makes questionable claims about subjects as varied as AIDS ("careful U.S. studies had already shown that at least a thousand sexual contacts are needed to achieve heterosexual transmission of the virus") and extinction ("It is not possible definitely to attribute any given extinction to human activity"), and backs up his arguments with references to the music magazine SPIN and thriller-writer Michael Crichton. Ironically, Bethell ends up proving his own premise by producing a highly politicized account of how liberal intellectuals and unchecked government agencies have created a "white-coated priesthood" whose lust for grant money has driven them to produce fearsome (but in Bethell's view, false) tales of ozone destruction and AIDS pandemics. In the end, this book is unlikely to sway readers who aren't already in Bethell's ideological camp, as any points worthy of discussion get lost in the glut of unsourced claims that populate this latest installment of "The Politically Incorrect Guide" series.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Inside Flap

Science is neutral, right?

Of course it’s reliable, based on fact, unprejudiced, and trustworthy, isn’t it? Well, guess again. A lot of what passes for science these days is pseudo-science, and a lot of scientific fact is hidden from public view because it’s not politically correct.

Science has been politicized—not by the Right, but by the Left, which sees global warming, Darwinism, stem cell research, and innumerable other issues as tools to advance its agenda (and in many cases expand the reach of government).

When liberals trot out scientists with white coats, debate is supposed to be silenced. But many of the high priests of science have something to hide—from blind intolerance of religion to jealous guarding of their federally financed research budgets.

Luckily, science journalist Tom Bethell is here with the necessary and bracing antidote: The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to Science.

Here’s a handy one-volume guide to some of the most contentious issues of our day, including:

· Why fears of nuclear power aren’t science, but unscientific scaremongering · Why species are increasing, not disappearing · Why global warming (and other temperature changes) are not caused by humans (remember the Ice Age?) · Why embryonic stem cell research is snake oil medicine (which is why it needs government subsidies) · Why Darwinism is crumbling · Why the story line of the brave scientist Galileo versus an ignorant Church is wrong · And much, much more

The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to Science busts myths, reveals hidden agendas, and lets you in on some of the little-known secrets about what’s really going on in science. If you’re tired of being hoodwinked by liberals who use science to justify all sorts of misbehavior, you need The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to Science.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 270 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing; ZZZ edition (November 14, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 089526031X
• ISBN-13: 978-0895260314
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (125 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #588,679 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Points Lost in the Politics, February 16, 2006

By 

Timothy Haugh (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (Politically Incorrect Guides) (Paperback)

Whenever you decide to read something with "politically incorrect" in the title, you are basically guaranteed that that book will be politically charged. Reading politically charged books can be quite fun. On the other hand, reviewing these books is often pointless because a person's political passions have already determined their reactions. Still, as a physics teacher and someone who likes to see both sides, I thought I'd put down a few thoughts.

First, let me say that there are many things Mr. Bethell asserts here with which I agree. His main point seems to be that the growth of government as the primary investor in science has perverted the scientific method into a political one. I certainly think that government money has politicized science though I believe conservatives have co-opted science for their political purposes as much as liberals. And I think that government support has a significant place in science.

I also agree with some of the purely scientific things that Mr. Bethell asserts. I have long been a believer in nuclear technology and the general safety of radiation when used correctly (think of x-rays & CAT scans--no one seems to worry much about this radiation). I agree that unreasonable fear has kept us from pursuing nuclear technologies that could make us much less dependant on foreign oil, for example. Mr. Bethell discusses the DDT ban and how its benefits clearly outweigh any supposed dangers it might have and there is certainly plenty of evidence to back that up. He also discusses the "flat earth" issue and I have long taught in my class that no educated person since the time of the Greeks has believed the earth was flat. The argument in Columbus' time was about the size of the earth, not the shape. (Columbus used inaccurate calculations to estimate the size of the earth to be considerable smaller than it is.)

On the other hand, I am left unconvinced by his arguments on genetic science--the genome project, stem cell research, cancer research & cloning. Just because no significant "curative" breakthroughs have been made (on the order of immunization or penicillin, for example) doesn't mean the research has no value and might not yield future results. I agree that the excitement about genetic research may be overblown but excitement is a human quality which doesn't devalue the research. I also find his arguments about intelligent design vs. evolution to be simplistic and misleading but typical of the very politicization of science that Mr. Bethell seems to abhor.

Which, of course, is the real problem with any book that claims to be sick of the politicization of anything--hypocrisy. Even at his most accurate & insightful, Mr. Bethell clearly has conservative political issues to spell out. Apart from the typical creationism stand, Mr. Bethell uses his discussions to promote other classic conservatism ideas: his discussion of extinction pushes for private properties & monopolies and his discussion of the AIDS crisis in Africa brings out the old saw that the African were better off under colonial rule. I felt like I was reading an essay from the Victorian era.

That's really the fundamental weakness of this book. What could have been a powerful exploration of serious scientific issues--for which Mr. Bethell could have made some excellent arguments--is instead reduced to the very issues of politics Mr. Bethell decries. It's too bad. An otherwise excellent opportunity to make moderates aware of some real scientific issues is lost.

596 of 800 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely good, November 12, 2005

By 

Thomas Woods (Auburn, AL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (Politically Incorrect Guides) (Paperback)

Tom Wolfe describes Tom Bethell as one of America's best essayists. We can see why. Bethell, an Oxford graduate, has written on a variety of scientific topics over the years and distills them in this outstanding book. He shows -- and quotes his sources copiously, so you don't need to take Bethell's word for things -- case after case of scientific "consensus" that has led the world down a dead end. But once an established view takes hold, it becomes extremely difficult for dissenting views to get a hearing. They certainly don't get government funding -- and the role that government funding plays in propping up poor science is a fascinating and consistently overlooked point that this book drives home again and again. The establishment media, meanwhile, fearful of questioning our new priesthood, consistently goes along with whatever they're told to say.

The book is not only beautifully and intelligently written, but it's also fun to read, believe it or not. Bethell's engaging style makes this book hard to put down.

Some of the points Bethell raises are quite surprising. He is skeptical of stem cell research, not for religious reasons (though he may have those as well for all I know) but because in recent months we have begun to learn that science has over-promised, so to speak. The grandiose claims of major cures being around the corner, he shows, are massively overstated. Stem cells don't seem to behave the way researchers thought they might.

Or take African AIDS. We've heard almost ludicrous figures regarding the number of Africans with AIDS. Wait till you read this chapter and you learn what it takes to qualify as having AIDS in Africa. You don't even need to test positive for HIV. That could be why the demographic catastrophes anticipated for Africa haven't panned out; Africa's population has increased dramatically over the past decade.

Then there's hormesis, the principle according to which certain things that are toxic in high doses are positively beneficial at low doses. This insight, which the scientific mainstream disdained for so long, is impossible to avoid today. The U.S. government, on the other hand, has spent countless sums and disrupted countless lives on the basis of the standard view that toxins are toxins, whether in large doses or in trace amounts. Entire communities, schools, etc. have been evacuated on this basis. Bethell shows, for instance, that cancer rates are often lower -- indeed MUCH lower -- among people who have had mild exposure to radiation than among control groups with no such exposure. This flies in the face of the oft-repeated claim that there is no such thing as a safe dose of radiation.

Bethell also exposes the hysteria over species extinction and the bizarre methodology used to reach the fantastic figures of extinctions we've routinely heard. Then there's the banning of DDT thanks to environmental extremists, which resulted in hundreds of millions of avoidable deaths. Bethell even manages to dig up quotations from major intellectuals who have openly favored the devastating demographic effects of banning DDT. That's scary stuff.

Now let me tell you what you can expect from some of the reviews you'll see of this book. Lots of people will love it, as they should. Others, usually people who haven't read it -- yes, this is VERY common on Amazon -- will denounce Bethell because this or that person gives him a blurb, or because he is skeptical of Darwin, or whatever. Don't let these people do your thinking for you -- someone who condemns a book he hasn't read is hardly in a position to criticize "dogmatism," is he?

What I'd like to see from critics of this book are SPECIFIC points Bethell makes that are wrong. Much of what Bethell teaches us here isn't really a matter of controversy. He's telling us, in some cases, about wildly exaggerated claims by mainstream scientists, the demonization of those who have dissented from these claims -- so much for the cool rationalism we expect to accompany science -- and the excruciatingly slow process by which the exaggerations have been exposed.

Modern science is a wonderful thing, responsible for a great many inventions and innovations that have improved our lives. But science is no more exempt from politics, pettiness, and agendas than any other field of human endeavor. Given the media's and the general public's intimidation in the face of science and scientists, though, behavior we would never tolerate in any other aspect of life is routinely given a pass in the scientific field.

Tom Bethell is to be congratulated for a volume that is at once thoroughly enjoyable, compulsively readable and full of serious and important information. When you see one-star reviews by people who have no specifics about the book, but just go on and on about what a fool Bethell is (or who try to appear they've read the book by quoting a phrase from the cover image above), IGNORE THEM ENTIRELY. No one writing such a review read the book. But you should -- and they should, if for once in their lives they could show evidence of the open mind such people are always telling us they have.

61 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I'm an Engineer Too . . ., December 16, 2005

By 

Dianne Roberts (Los Angeles, California United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (Politically Incorrect Guides) (Paperback)

OK, this is an odd book. From reading the "other reviews" of everyone who's given this book a one star review it's clear that they are *mostly* -even some admittedly- members of the far left and reacting emotionally. Or they're the admittedly far right "Mr. Truth." My sincere apologies to him for failing to predict his one star review and political persuasion before I sat down to write my initial review. This is not a great book, but it is definitely better than 1 star or calling it trash or ranting and raving about science from people who aren't scientists. This is a book about how science can be politicized.

Having a master's degree in engineering (not the same as science but close) and having worked in R&D for several years (very near the same as science) I can tell you this: No one really knows all that much about science and anyone claiming you should listen to them because they're a scientist and an engineer is full of it. (Me especially)

So let's start on another path.

Science is a method (quite surprisingly named the Scientific method) which really is an epistemological way to define fact. (As opposed to truth, which gives meaning to fact. Religion and philosophy do that, but meaning isn't verifiable whereas facts are.) Science depends first on collecting data on a system: What are the inputs to the system, what is the configuration of the system, what are the outputs of the system. For example the system could be studying global warming of the earth. The configuration could be the Earth's natural atmosphere and atmospheric chemistry, the amount of solar radiation, etc. The inputs could be antrhopogenic CO2 and other pollutants and the output would be temperature. As you collect the data you propose a hypothesis which explains the process of causation between the inputs and configuration on the outputs. At this point all you have is a wild guess so for the purposes of science you have to conduct a controlled experiment to test your hypothesis. In the real world any system has a lot of variables that can be part of the configuration, and a lot that can be inputs, and a lot more that are outputs. In the controlled experiment you control for all the variables except those that are pertinent to your hypothesis, and vary those to see if your theory is borne out in a sort of quasi "reality."

Science thus easily explains relatively simple systems with few inputs and outputs and simple system configurations. When the number of variables becomes large, and/or the ability to conduct controlled experiments is hampered, science becomes extremely difficult. The way the entire Earth works is one such example. Knowledge is gained in piecemeal fashion and for extremely large systems even a very large amount of knowledge may be insufficient to fully explain and predict its input-output behavior.

These troublesome conditions exist in spades for such areas as the environment, biology, psychology, etc. The reality of the matter is that human knowledge of these fields is far less than scientists and engineers like to admit.

What this book is about then (and it is not terribly well written, in fact it's quite confusing sometimes) is that in certain fields science is very vulnerable to being used for political agendas. There are several reasons for this:

- Scientists are people too, they have politics and many of them are not above using the public perception of science to advance their agenda in areas of knowledge where they know they can't be refuted, because no one really knows enough to refute them.

- Because science is about finding verifiable facts people believe that scientists are generally correct and unbiased. Since science really IS hard, people like reporters aren't going to go through the effort of getting a Ph.D. in quantum physics to critique scientific claims. Science therefore has a built-in soapbox which can potentially be abused, in a way that, say, the plumbing profession doesn't.

- It's embarrassing to admit we know so little about things like how the environment and about how the body really works, especially when we've spent all our lives and lots of money studying them. So some otherwise honest scientists will put forth their best guess or just agree with the most vocal in their field to avoid looking dumb or useless (which they really aren't).

- Scientists exacerbate possible problems in order to get funding. "There may or may not be a problem, I don't know, I need more time and money" won't get you an extension on a grant, even though it's usually the most intellectually honest. "The earth might be heading for disaster" on the other hand will. This is especially true for government funding of science, especially since the funding parties explicitly do have a bias and were voted into office on the foundation of that bias!

This book primarily goes into more depth on several aspects of science which the author claims liberals have taken over politically. (Sometimes this is convincing, sometimes it isn't.) Most of these topics are in the environment and life science fields where the numbers of variables are so immense, and our ability to actually perform controlled experiments (especially in the case of things like global warming) are next to nil, and are thus the most ripe for political abuse. Despite what people think he does not come down for the conservative answer as "the" answer.

There's definitely some interesting information in each of these topics. It was especially interesting to see how little we really know about the origin of life. Evolution might be right, so may creationism. Unfortunately there really is not enough evidence to prove evolution correct and thus there's still plenty of room for other theories to be correct. (The fossil record and the patterns of life on the planet are so complex that no theory has really satisfiably coalesced all the data yet. A modified form of evolution may be able to, but, again, maybe not.) Creationism is one such theory, but with the peculiar problem that it can't be scientifically proven because it falls outside of what science allows as possible. (We can't replicate an omnipotent creator in a controlled experiment, so any claim of omnipotent forces can't be verified. It can only be believed in.) The fact that private venture capital firms aren't terribly interested in investing in stem cell research is a telling point as well. He makes another good point about government funding of science. This will practically be biased right off the bat, and it has the unintended consequence of drying up private venture capital which can't compete, and of concentrating all the research in the few theories government chooses to fund because the government is such a large source of money practically the entire science community pursues it.

Where the book falls short is:

- Written in a confusing manner

- Trying to point out that there's politics in science and that it's bad for science, by being political itself. This is a little self-defeating.

- Being against all government funding of science. In many cases government funding of science is not helpful. But in other cases, like NASA and DoD research, it has been. Trying to determine when it's good and when it's bad would have been interesting and useful, but instead we get a political stance.

There is a lot of fascinating stuff in here. If you're a die hard liberal (or, ahem, "Mr. Truth") it will apparently fool you into the unnecessary need to go into apoplectic rage against the book. If you're willing to put up with some confusing writing and decide to just forget about all the politics liberal and conservative you might just learn something about some of the most important scientific debates of our times.

P.S.

In all sincerity if Mr. Truth could show us, at least with a weblink or reference to the books that have made him so knowledgable in evolution, how there is 100% evolution rather than expecting us to blindly accept his credentials I think we all would be interested so long as we're willing to be open-minded. The fact that we all have common DNA in and of itself is not sufficient proof that evolution is correct so far as I know. (I may be wrong though, what do I know?) What's the process of new species generation? If it is through DNA mutation, then could you address the phenomenon of no "half-bats" which was brought up in the book but not mentioned in your review? Has anyone been able to identify the species ancestors that connect us from our current selves to any known species past or present? If so then that could potentially prove evolution. Last, if evolution is 100% proved, why are people still spending entire careers and vast sums of money scouring for missing links and trying to explain how new species actually appear? In my field no one has devoted their career to proving f=ma anymore (It's also a far simpler system than evolution). I'm not saying creationism is correct (creationism is a belief and can't be proven correct or incorrect), or that evolution is incorrect, but I do think species generation is such a vastly complex subject, and that the current state of the art in the theory of evolution doesn't explain it all yet to warrant 100% correct assertions. More theories that have been claimed as 100% correct have later been proved wrong in science than those that haven't.