Nonsense on Stilts

How to Tell Science from Bunk

By: Massimo Pigliucci

Narrated by: Jay Russell

Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Recent polls suggest that fewer than 40 per cent of Americans believe in Darwin's theory of evolution, despite it being one of science's best-established findings. More and more parents are refusing to vaccinate their children for fear it causes autism, though this link has been consistently disproved. And about 40 per cent of Americans believe that the threat of global warming is exaggerated, despite near consensus in the scientific community that manmade climate change is real.

Why do people believe bunk? And what causes them to embrace such pseudoscientific beliefs and practices? Noted skeptic Massimo Pigliucci sets out to separate the fact from the fantasy in this entertaining exploration of the nature of science, the borderlands of fringe science, and - borrowing a famous phrase from philosopher Jeremy Bentham - the nonsense on stilts.

Presenting case studies on a number of controversial topics, Pigliucci cuts through the ambiguity surrounding science to look more closely at how science is conducted, how it is disseminated, how it is interpreted, and what it means to our society. The result is in many ways a "taxonomy of bunk" that explores the intersection of science and culture at large.

No one - not the public intellectuals in the culture wars between defenders and detractors of science nor the believers of pseudoscience themselves - is spared Pigliucci's incisive analysis. In the end, Nonsense on Stilts is a timely reminder of the need to maintain a line between expertise and assumption. Broad in scope and implication, it is also ultimately a captivating guide for the intelligent citizen who wishes to make up her own mind while navigating the perilous debates that will affect the future of our planet.

NOTE: Some editorial changes to the original text have been made with the author’s approval.

©2010 The University of Chicago (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"How can we decide what counts as science? That is the central question of this brilliant book, which ought to be required reading for, well, everyone." (New Scientist)

"Jay Russell's excellent narration guides listeners through the skeptic's arguments, even when Pigliucci bogs down in scientific language. Russell delivers the author's passion for his subject with some sarcasm or anger but, overall, maintains his role as a reasoned guide." (AudioFile)

Thought provoking and relevant

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.

Great Book - aweful narration.

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.

Listen to the sample first!

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.

Not great

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.

Informative but not worth the effort

I wanted to enjoy this book, but it is like taking a an interesting course where the professor loves to talk - it is very heavy on data, examples, history, asides, tangents, and very light on conclusions, points or meaning. All I can say it is that there is a lot of information provided by Pigliucci, he overwhelms with detail.

Excellent and superb book

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.

Excellent guide

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.

Balderdash! Rubbish! Hooey! Identification Guide

Massimo Pigliucci's "Nonsense on Stilts: How to tell Science from Bunk" (2010) is a surprisingly in-depth history and analysis of critical thinking and scientific philosophy. It's surprising because a catchy title like "Nonsense on Stilts" implies a light, anecdotal read, perhaps with some pithy but shallow arguments to throw at earnest intelligent designers or creationists; or suggestions for explaining why, no matter what your friends say, you don't want to pick someone to date based on their "sign". I didn't expect a near screed about the difference between pseudoscience and actual science; a thorough but one-sided analysis of postmodernism criticism; or the history of philosophy and scientific philosophy. Those were all here, and more.

(Confession: until I read this book, I didn't know there was a difference between creationists and intelligent designerists. Or whatever the ID folks call themselves. And my understanding of postmodernism was limited to architecture I don't particularly appreciate.)

Listening to "Nonsense" was a little bit like overhearing half of a really impassioned debate on some issues. Pigliucci mentions some particular pseudoscientists he takes issue with, which actually lends those individuals and their arguments some credence. I'm very much a lay person when it comes to philosophy, and I had never even heard of the views those outsiders claim have merit.

One of Pigliucci's better known targets in general is Mayim Bialik, PhD, brilliant neuroscientist with a wide following. She is an example of someone who is an expert in one field who believes she's an expert in another field - but falls dangerously short. Having Bialik opine about autism and vaccines is like having Neil de Grasse Tyson, PhD, offer an opinion about trade patterns and location of economic activities. Sure, de Grasse Tyson is brilliant and admired, but he's not the economist Paul Krugman. Where Pigliucci falls very short is suggesting that theories deserve short shrift because the proponent is popular. Bialik's theories don't deserve more credence because she's got a fan base but as Hedy Lamarr's pioneering work in frequency skipping technology proved, a screen presence and scientific thought are not mutually exclusive. Bialik's theories about homeopathic medicine must be disregarded, though, because, when subjected to scientific proof, they fail utterly.

"Nonsense" did help me understand why some people refuse to 'believe' basic and widely accepted theories like evolution and global warming. It's a failure of logical reasoning, an inability to think scientifically. That problem can be fixed - if the problem is recognized.

The book was a bit of an unstructured slog and I had it several months before I was able to listen my way through the whole thing. But it's Audible, I had a choice to listen or return - and, you know what? I'm glad I listened.

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Uninformative and dogmatic, not wroth the time.

Every aspect of culture has is orthodoxies, religious, political, economic, artistic and even scientific. Inherent in each orthodoxy are their articles of faith, dogmas, adherents, defenders, evangelists and prophets. There is no fault with any of these, but they must be understood for what they are. Massimo Pigliucci is, without question, a minister of scientific orthodoxy, and as such uses the tools and methods of his avocation. He must be read with this understanding. The first line of defense for orthodoxy is consensus, which he sites repeatedly, ignoring the basic understanding that consensus has never established fact. Instead of discussing questions rationally on their merits, he falls back on insults and demeaning language while attacking the motives and personalities of those who disagree with him, questioning their right to speak outside of their credentialed areas of expertise while repeatedly doing so himself.
As an engineer and physics instructor of 40 years, I have accumulated many questions on the positions commonly held in the scientific community, none of which were addressed seriously in this book. If you are looking for an emotional pep talk to sustain you in your commonly held opinions, this is your book, but if you are looking for an objective, rational discussion, look elsewhere. This is least informative and least credible book I have ever read on these topics.

Good and detailed content, tolerable narration

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.

Good, but...

This is a book that I like, as the subject matter is right up my alley, but I must say I have stopped listening to it as the style of narration gets bothersome after a while. The narrator speaks with a 'staccato' voice that cannot possibly reflect his normal mode of speaking. A few minutes is fine, but after a while becomes tiring. It's a bit like listening to a robot and a bit as if the narrator thinks we won't be able to understand what he says if he speak normally instead of in this artificial and disjointed fashion he has invented. That nonwithstanding, if you don't mind this, then do definitely consider buying it as Pigliucci talks a lot of sense and deserves to be heard.

nonsense on stilts

excellent,read,if you want to listen to common sense ; The talker is excellent overall quality

A must listen for everyone

Everyone who wants to make well informed decisions on scientific issues should know how to distinguish science from pseudoscience and this book will give you all the tools to do that. I think everyone should read this. Especially now, with people so often being mislead by people who are not at all experts on issues they try to influence about. Anti vaxxers, Trump supporters, brexiteers , racist people, flat earthers, creationists, climate change deniers...and so on, are trying to lead people down a dangerous, possibly life threatening route. If this book would be compulsory in schools, we could have much more resilient societies. I'll go and listen to Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World next, although it should've been the other way round.

I keep coming back to this

I love this Ebook. It's clear, accessible, witty and a wealth of information. Thoroughly recommended!

Good and Bad in Equal Measures

I wanted to like this a lot.
I did in fact like this a lot, at least to start with.
However the latter half of this book seemed to have an such an anti-religeous thread running through it that at times what appeared to be a personal vendetta against anyone who believed in a deity masked the validity of many of Pigliucci's arguments. A little more humility, and a little more respect for contrary, but valid, opinions would have done much to mitigate this.