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A Much-Needed Reality Check

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A few weeks ago in a nearby Barnes & Noble, I intended to be conservative in my spending. After all, I have plenty of books I already own and haven't read, and working in a library means I have access to hundreds more I might want to read. Seeing Donald Prothero's new book Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future immediately overcame my resistance. Prothero, a geologist by training, has written a range of books, including a number that are highly regarded, including his 2007 book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, a thorough debunking of creationist arguments about geology and fossils. Reality Check touches again on creationism, but the larger thrust of the work is an attack on a variety of un-scientific rubbish that has a stranglehold on the minds of many and threatens our very future. From climate change denial and creationism to anti-vaccine activists and those who deny the reality of the finite nature of fossils fuels, Prothero tackles them all. While one can certainly read the entire work, each individual chapter could stand on its own as a debunking of anti-scientific thinking, making it a valuable work to have at hand. Just as valuable, in an era where we are inundated with information, is the overview Prothero provides at the beginning of the book, noting the similarities between different types of science denial as well as a guide for evaluating the reliability of claims we meet on a daily basis. 

Prothero also argues that no form of science denial is truly harmless. While it is clear that the campaign against vaccines has led to the deaths of hundreds in the U.S. alone by completely preventable diseases, and that inaction on the climate due to the obstruction and denial of the reality of the situation will only lead to worse problems down the road, even something like astrology or homeopathy causes harm in that money and time are wasted on ideas and treatments that have no basis in scientific reality. 

I can't state it more clearly than this: Reality Check is one of the best non-fiction books I've read this year. Like Prothero's Evolution and Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True, this book is a quick reference for those confronted by science denialism. Read it, and pass it on. Every citizen deserves to know the truth about some of the most pressing scientific issues of the day, to be able to live their lives based on sound science rather than on the muddled, fearful proclamations of the deniers. If we are to have any future on this planet, or any future worth living in, it will depend on whether we base our choices on real science or fall back on the mysticism and anti-science thinking that threatens to destroy it. 


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