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pidgevorg 's review for:
Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
This would be 4 stars if it weren't for several glaring inaccurate statements. In a general-audience book like this, there is a tendency to have less proof rather than more, and I usually tend to give them the benefit of the doubt if they provide references to the actual scientific research papers. In this case they provided references for their major points, which were interesting and controversial enough. But this didn't seem sufficient for the authors—I guess they decided that the more controversial the better, and stuffed the book with random unsupported statements that seem to contradict what is usually considered common knowledge. Except some of these statements are so obviously bogus that it makes me seriously doubt the authors' credibility.
Apparently using solar power makes climate change worse. Why? Because the solar panels are dark and will absorb sunlight and disperse it as heat energy, increasing global warming. Really? They're dark compared to what? Tar covered roofs? This is such obvious bull crap that I don't even have to do any outside verification. Another claim they made is that one of the lead scientists in the climate change camp stated that carbon emissions were not the main culprit. Really? If he's saying something completely contradictory to the climate change guys, why do they consider him as one of the prominent scientists on their side in the first place? I looked this up and apparently this scientist felt that the authors of this book misquoted him, and demanded that they remove that quote. And there were more statements of the “everything you think you know is wrong” variety. Since no evidence was provided, it only made it seem like the authors are desperately trying to make themselves look extra clever.
Apparently using solar power makes climate change worse. Why? Because the solar panels are dark and will absorb sunlight and disperse it as heat energy, increasing global warming. Really? They're dark compared to what? Tar covered roofs? This is such obvious bull crap that I don't even have to do any outside verification. Another claim they made is that one of the lead scientists in the climate change camp stated that carbon emissions were not the main culprit. Really? If he's saying something completely contradictory to the climate change guys, why do they consider him as one of the prominent scientists on their side in the first place? I looked this up and apparently this scientist felt that the authors of this book misquoted him, and demanded that they remove that quote. And there were more statements of the “everything you think you know is wrong” variety. Since no evidence was provided, it only made it seem like the authors are desperately trying to make themselves look extra clever.