Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk

The most interesting book I have read in a long time. Beginning as a standard de-bunking book, where Pigliucci uses clear-sighted logic to dissect pseudo-scientific ideas, like UFO's, Psi studies, and the Dover, PA Intelligent Design case, he thankfully moves into new territory, saving it from being another Michael Shermer book.

Instead, the author uses these cases studies as a spring-board to illustrate the power of science. Slowly, and with increasing resonance, he begins to unveil the unique contribution that philosophy could bring to the understanding and advancement of science. In the process, he takes solid aim at "Scientism," the near religious belief in Atheistic Science as the only thing that produces value--think Richard Dawkins.

What I really enjoyed was how Pigliucci moves beyond Popper-ian "experiemntal falsifiabilty" into a more nuanced, updated view of what contemporary philosophers of science tell us what it really means to be "scientific." Science means close observation, and adherence to the peer review process to even out our biases. It also means using and careful reasoning, both inductive and deductive. Ultimately, being truly scientific means realizing that our current theory is just a temporary understanding that further study will, likely, sweep away.

The book finishes with a wonderful meditation:"How can you tell an expert from a charlatan?" Healthy food for the grey cells. Of course, Pigliucci, or any relatively competent thinker can, with relative ease, debunk things coming from the Cato Institute. But what about us? Regular people. You know; "John Q. Public?" He looks at 1) The quality of the evidence provided. 2) The reputation of an "expert" among their peers. 3) The expert's biases.

Overall, a great book on skeptical thinking. Instead of an easy debunking of straw-men like Depak Chopra and ESP experts, his focus is on the philosophy of how science works in the real world. Indeed, it looks at science's role as perhaps the only surefire way to overcome our frail human biases when uncovering the truth about things the way they are--and not, for good or ill, the way we want them to be.

It really isn't all about debunking bad science, despite the title. Instead, it goes into a variety of topics related to science in society, and as I said, his discussion of the topics is very thoughtful and not antagonistic. While I don't agree with everything he says, I do think he handled the subject matter quite masterfully.

This is a wonderful book - very timely. Good coverage of all the relevant areas except I think he went a bit too easy on Dr. Deepak Chopra and his quantum nonsense - I was expecting a real smack-down!
However, the reading was terrible - so many words, especially names were mispronounce - some very common ones found in science. Narrator mispronounces "eugenics," "heuristics," "cognito ergo sum" among them. Also how would anyone read "Apollo 11" as "Apollo Two" ? Ready! The reading pace is quite annoying - slowing down and then taking off and speeding up! I've purchased many Audio Book and this is the only one where the narration really ruin my enjoyment of the content.

This is a must read for anyone interested in science or philosophy of science. Pigliucci covers the topic of science vs pseudoscience thoroughly, and brings up many excellent points about the importance of skepticism.

interesting and informative

I loved the part where he discussed Penn and Teller's Showtime show

no

The truth hurts

I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in science and knowledge

As for the book itself, I concur with what others have said: a very detailed, compelling, and for the most part well-written account of the boundaries of science (as opposed to pseudoscience and emerging knowledge) with excellent accounts of specific topics like evolution vs intelligent design, various pseudo-scientific claims, etc. The author can be a bit dry or overly-lengthy in places, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Pigliucci does not pull his punches in defence of the scientific consensus on evolution, climate change, etc., which may come off as closed-minded for those who disagree with his stances.


As for the narrator... I'm afraid that you'll find a lot better ones on Audible, but for me it wasn't a consistent distraction. Notable mistakes include once saying "physics" rather than "psychics" in Ch. 2, which was actually funny in the context, and mispronouncing the name of well-known figure Noam Chomsky as "Noah Chumsky". It seems like someone should have caught those, but then I don't know much about the editing process that goes into these audiobooks.

With that qualification, highly recommended.

I enjoyed listening to this audio book. The narration is excellent! If you love science, you will love listening to this book. I highly recommend it. The author talks about things like philosophy and science, how come scientists can predict the outcome of an experiment but they can't predict the future, history - things you never knew about Galileo and other interesting figures, and much more behind the scenes of science. Pseudoscience just doesn't cut it, and you'll find out why. Funny. Factual. You'll love it.

I was desperately interested in the content of this book but the narration made me give up. Flat, with an awful buzzing quality to it, and the accent made it worse. Hopefully others don't have the same problem with this fantastic book.

No, I wouldn't. My mistake. This book is quite good if you like science thought, aca Richard Dawkins, S. Jay Gould and many others. But it doesn't taste as entertainment to be listen, perhaps I would have enjoyed much more if I could have underlined many passages. But then I am from the pre-Cloud generation, or the paper generation.

Never, too much to digest in one sititng

First off the narration is bad. Very boring, almost sounds like a computer voice.

The content is OK. You can definitely tell the writer has a real disdain for conservatives and anyone with religion. His points are good and I agree with many of them, but he cannot hide his obvious disgust with all things conservative. In fact, he spends an entire chapter on one conservative judge who shockingly sided with reason over religion. He kept pointing out that he was a conservative judge as if it is totally beyond the realm of possibility that he would be fair and impartial.