Author: Damian Thompson
Rating: * * * *

The CIA masterminded the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Jesus sired a dynasty of Merovingian Kings, homeopathy cures illness. There exist many people who believe those statements to be true. Conspiracy theories, along with quack medicine, fake history and bogus science, all form “Counterknowledge”; “misinformation masquerading as fact.” Thompson’s argument is that the 21st century faces a “pandemic of credulous thinking” even as our ability to evaluate claims made about science or history is better than ever before.

With the internet, “Counter­knowledge” has a larger following than ever before. But, we are warned, it’s not all turtle-neck wearing novelists and bible-wackos; Westminster University offers, astonishingly, a degree in homeopathy.

Fans of the Guardian’s Bad Science column will love this book. Thompson fights Counterknowledge using only reason and, crucially, systematically-tested evidence. With his razor-sharp prose, he not only rubbishes the credulous world we live in, but calls on us to challenge the “guardians of intellectual orthodoxy” and waken them from greedy, slothful indolence.

Related Posts

• Cantor’s credentials point to commerce over students
• Gender equality awards for science departments
• Heslington East: environmentally unsound
• University ethics committee told to exempt research
• Russia: a land of conspiracy