Damian Thompson (1) (1962–)

Counterknowledge was a very quick read -- I finished it in about two hours, and a very worthwhile read. This book is a rise to arms against the misinformation that clouds modern day thinking. Rather than speaking out against the institutions that purport this wrong-thinking, the book speaks out for a new Enlightenment and respect for the methodologies that modern science values. The book presents its arguments in a sound, logical manner that makes it easy reading while not devaluing the importance of its message in the least.… (mere)

In many ways this is a complementary volume to Andrew Keen's 2007 book The Cult of the Amateur and, going back a little earlier, Francis Wheen's 2004 polemic How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World: all three are concerned with how, in the name of in other contexts laudable principles like democracy and freedom of speech, we're selling out to the ignorant, the biased, the secret corporation shills, the bullies, and the batshit crazy. It's a fairly short book, and it romps lightly and very readably through a limited set of areas in which public knowledge is being devastated by other people's agendas. Much of this material has been covered in greater depth elsewhere; this is no hostile criticism, because Thompson's book serves as an ideal introduction for those who haven't read the fuller treatments. What makes this book valuable, though, is Thompson's refusal to be browbeaten by political correctness; or, at least, the blanket application of that concept to stuff that people would rather not admit. His treatment of the mangling of science and promotion of rankest pseudoscience in the Islamic cultures is especially enlightening (it led me to Pervez Hoodbhoy's much more detailed treatment in Islam and Science), as is his demolition of "Afrocentric history", far too much of which is plain mythology (I rushed out and bought Mary Lefkowitz's Not Out of Africa for a more detailed treatment, and should be reading it shortly). His discussion of HIV/AIDS-denialism is also good.

And sometimes it's funny, too.… (mere)