A well-argued yet discouraging exercise in the application of reason to unreason.
Irrational beliefs have reached epidemic proportions, writes philosopher and science historian McIntyre in this earnest effort to explain them.
The author hits the ground running with an account of the 2018 Flat Earth International Conference, whose attendees believe that the Earth is a disk surrounded by a wall of ice (Antarctica) under a transparent dome, that all space travel is faked, and that the truth is suppressed by a worldwide conspiracy of “experts.” The leaders in the flat Earth movement seem sincere, and the members are thrilled to belong to an elite that has discovered a truth denied to the hapless mainstream. “Science denial is not based on lack of evidence,” writes McIntyre. “Which means that it cannot be remedied just by providing more facts. Those who wish to change the minds of science deniers have to stop treating them as if they were just misinformed.” Furthermore, insults rarely work. Readers may be frustrated that the author shows as much interest in understanding how believers think as in disproving errors, but he provides ingenious insights throughout. Among those most familiar to psychologists are five factors involved in organized science denial: “cherry-picking evidence, belief in conspiracy theories, reliance on fake experts (and the denigration of real experts), logical errors, and setting impossible expectations for what science can achieve.” McIntyre shows how deniers ignored or denied the existence of climate change because it’s something that may happen in the future. Then came Covid-19, which was ubiquitous—and they denied that, too. Especially in the U.S., science denial has become politicized, with a distinct rightward tilt. “To some extent,” writes the author, “conservative denial of climate change and evolution may be explained by the fact that this is just what conservatives are expected to believe.” Lest liberals get too comfortable, McIntyre casts a gimlet eye on the fierce opposition to foods containing genetically modified organisms. “There have been no credible studies that have shown any risk in consuming them.”
A well-argued yet discouraging exercise in the application of reason to unreason.Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-262-04610-7
Page Count: 264
Publisher: MIT Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A remarkably thorough and thoughtful case for the reconciliation between science and faith.
A duo of French mathematicians makes the scientific case for God in this nonfiction book.
Since its 2021 French-language publication in Paris, this work by Bolloré and Bonnassies has sold more than 400,000 copies. Now translated into English for the first time by West and Jones, the book offers a new introduction featuring endorsements from a range of scientists and religious leaders, including Nobel Prize-winning astronomers and Roman Catholic cardinals. This appeal to authority, both religious and scientific, distinguishes this volume from a genre of Christian apologetics that tends to reject, rather than embrace, scientific consensus. Central to the book’s argument is that contemporary scientific advancements have undone past emphases on materialist interpretations of the universe (and their parallel doubts of spirituality). According to the authors’ reasoned arguments, what now forms people’s present understanding of the universe—including quantum mechanics, relativity, and the Big Bang—puts “the question of the existence of a creator God back on the table,” given the underlying implications. Einstein’s theory of relativity, for instance, presupposes that if a cause exists behind the origin of the universe, then it must be atemporal, non-spatial, and immaterial. While the book’s contentions related to Christianity specifically, such as its belief in the “indisputable truths contained in the Bible,” may not be as convincing as its broader argument on how the idea of a creator God fits into contemporary scientific understanding, the volume nevertheless offers a refreshingly nuanced approach to the topic. From the work’s outset, the authors (academically trained in math and engineering) reject fundamentalist interpretations of creationism (such as claims that Earth is only 6,000 years old) as “fanciful beliefs” while challenging the philosophical underpinnings of a purely materialist understanding of the universe that may not fit into recent scientific paradigm shifts. Featuring over 500 pages and more than 600 research notes, this book strikes a balance between its academic foundations and an accessible writing style, complemented by dozens of photographs from various sources, diagrams, and charts.
A remarkably thorough and thoughtful case for the reconciliation between science and faith.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9789998782402
Page Count: 562
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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