Counterknowledge
Did you know that the U.S. government knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance? Or that there is a link between childhood autism and the MMR triple vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella? Or that a Chinese fleet circumnavigated the globe in the early 15th century, reaching America 70 years before Columbus?
As Damian Thompson shows in Counterknowledge, these claims “have been presented as fact by reputable publishing houses, discussed respectfully by newspaper columnists, quoted by politicians and circulated on the Internet.” Yet all of them have something in common: They are utter hogwash.
Thompson sees a global society that has replaced the ideal of skepticism with gullibility when it comes to new claims about the world. “Counterknowledge,” he writes, is “misinformation packaged to look like fact—packaged so effectively, indeed, that the twenty-first century is facing a pandemic of credulous thinking.” This topic has been treated by other authors, but seldom with the wit and eloquence on display in these pages. Thompson leads us through a gallery of popular falsehoods, from the bogus claims of “intelligent design” creationism, to the unfounded promise of alternative medicines, to the pseudohistory of such blockbusters as The Da Vinci Code and Fingerprints of the Gods—whose “findings” about the past are swallowed wholeheartedly by their legions of fans.
More than a mere catalog of bunkum, the book analyzes our need to believe, identifying our readiness to accept falsehoods and the viral role of technology in spreading them. “There may still be time to turn counterknowledge into a chronic but containable disease,” Thomson writes, “ but we are a long way from reaching that stage.”
Counterknowledge offers an incisive look at the prevalence and perniciousness of false beliefs in the modern age.
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co. ( September 01, 2008 )
Item #: 57-1025
ISBN: 9780393067699
Product Dimensions: 5.375 x 8.0 x 0.0 inches
Product Weight: 9.0 ounces
April 08, 2009
This book starts out with a bang, providing examples of many incidences where the American and British publics uncritically accept many ideas and conspiracy theories that proper critical thinking and scientific research have proven (as much as is possible) convincingly false.
However, the second half of the book denegrates into liberal bashing and he states that the Muslim world has never had an enlightenment, which causes me to ask: what was the Ottoman Empire then? Didn't they invent Arabic numerals and certain kinds of math? If the author can back up his claim, he should have included a small statement to that effect in the book.
The author also doesn't come up with many solutions to the problem of the gullible public or how we as readers should guard against falling into this trap (except for follow scientific studies, perhaps).
Anyway, this is a quick fun read but I wouldn't rate it more than three stars. It could have been better written and better edited.
Reviewer: Kris
REVEALING
November 18, 2008
An eye opening account of the many sources of false information we are subjected to. The corrosion of knowledge that is accepted today should be of concern to all.
Reviewer: Mark W
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