Title: Nonsense on Stilts:How to Tell Science from Bunk
Author: Massimo Pigliucci Page
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN-10: 0226667863
ISBN-13: 978-0226667867
Review: I had first heard about this book quite a while ago while listening to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, but as I am a very slow reader, it took me quite a while to get to it as I had many other books in the queue. By the time I started reading it, I had already finished quite a few books in the skeptical genre and as such found that I was experiencing a bit of an echo chamber effect. Much of the early subject matter in the book were issues covered in other books I had read for instance, the Dover Intelligent Design Trial.
Luckily the recycling of topics (at least for me) had ended about 1/3 of the way into the book. After that, there was a wealth of new information that I had not yet learned about from other skeptical books. Information such as the decline of the public intellectual and the rise of think tanks, and one of my favorite topics: the evolution of science itself. Pigliucci managed to educate me on something that has never even entered into my imagination previously, that is how our current view of science has changed and evolved since ancient times. The last 1/4 of the book was kind of a philosophy vs science smack down that was interesting, but not earth shattering.
All in all a pretty good book, but not a great book. I give it 4 out of 5.
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