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erinalexdocx's review against another edition
4.0
Very useful book for understanding sound scientific and logical principles for evaluating information. It falters in terms of how to reconcile these approaches with the existence of “unscientific” phenomena which cannot be wholly undone without cruelty, discrimination or violence - culture, gender identity, etc. The authors defend the scientific method as the only way to determine what is true, and thus be in the best possible position to make good decisions - but it doesn’t always follow that knowing what is scientifically true will lead to knowledge of how to construct a fair and equitable society. Scientific knowledge certainly helps us make the best decisions when it comes to, for example, health (sound scientific knowledge helps us understand that, e.g., vaccines are safe) but doesn’t necessarily help us solve questions of, for example, poverty, or how to create a society where members of different cultural groups can live peacefully among one another. I was quite disconcerted by one of the imagined scenarios given as a revision tool which said something to the effect of, if you encountered a village of people who believed in some god, how would you go about convincing them that this god is not real? By applying the scientific method to the question of the existence of gods, it is quite clear that it is very unlikely that gods exist - but to force this conclusion onto entire cultural groups seems a recipe for violence (such a thing has occurred within the past few centuries countless times to indigenous peoples the world over via colonisation). Acknowledgement of cultural contexts should always be a part of knowledge sharing and building. Despite my gripes with this book, it was very well-written, and I especially enjoyed the section on the tachyonic anti-telephone!
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