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What's healthy? What's unhealthy? What's safe? What's dangerous? Watch the news, and it's easy to be overwhelmed by snippets of badly presented science: information that's incomplete, confusing, contradictory, out-of-context, wrong, or flat-out dishonest. In this book, Dr. Sherry Seethaler provides a "bag of tricks" for making sense of science in the news. You'll learn how to think more sensibly about everything from mad cow disease to global warming and make better science-related decisions in both your personal life and as a citizen. You'll begin by understanding how science really works and progresses, and why scientists sometimes disagree. Seethaler helps you assess the possible biases of those who make scientific claims in the media, and place scientific issues in appropriate context, so you can intelligently assess tradeoffs. You'll learn how to determine whether a new study is really meaningful; uncover the difference between cause and mere coincidence; figure out which statistics mean something, and which don't. Finally, drawing on her extensive experience as a science journalist, she reveals the tricks self-interested players use to mislead and confuse you, and points you to sources of information you can actually rely upon. Seethaler's many examples range from genetic engineering of crops to drug treatments for depression, but the techniques she teaches you will be invaluable in understanding any scientific controversy, in any area of science or health.
- Sales Rank: #121726 in Books
- Published on: 2009-01-23
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .50" w x 5.90" l, .61 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 224 pages
About the Author
Sherry Seethaler, a science writer and educator at the University of California, San Diego, works with scientists to explain their discoveries to the public. She also writes a column for the San Diego Union-Tribune answering readers’ questions about science. Seethaler holds an M.S. and Master of Philosophy in biology from Yale, and a Ph.D. in science and math education from UC Berkeley.
Excerpt. � Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Praise for Lies, Damned Lies, and Science: How to Sort through the Noise around Global Warming, the Latest Health Claims, and OPraise for Lies, Damned Lies, and Science
“Comprehensive, readable, and replete with current, useful examples, this book provides a much-needed explanation of how to be a critical consumer of the scientific claims we encounter in our everyday lives.”
—April Cordero Maskiewicz, Department of Biology, Point Loma Nazarene University
“Seethaler’s book helps the reader look inside the workings of science and gain a deeper understanding of the pathway that is followed by a scientific finding—from its beginnings in a research lab to its appearance on the nightly news.”
—Jim Slotta, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
“How I wish science was taught this way! Seethaler builds skills for critical thinking and evaluation. The book is rich with examples that not only illustrate her points beautifully, they also make it very interesting and fun to read.”
—Julia R. Brown, Director, Targacept, Inc.
Preface
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out.
—Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1471-1530)
My goal in writing this book is to help people make sense of the science-related issues that impact their daily lives. Lies, Damned Lies, and Science provides an enlightening approach for contemplating scientific issues, and brings these issues into focus the way new glasses sharpen one’s vision. In other words, the book is a new lens through which to view the world. Each chapter reveals a unique set of elements that need to be taken into consideration when reasoning about a complex science-related issue. In addition to bringing these elements into focus, the book shows how they fit together into something greater than a sum of parts.
Most of the messages that bombard us everyday are carefully selected to present just one of a kaleidoscope of possible perspectives on technological, environmental, economic, and health issues such as global warming, mad cow disease, nanotechnology, genetically engineered food, who should take cholesterol-lowering drugs, and what are the merits of banning plastic bags. Oversimplified black-and-white perspectives of issues come from those who have a vested interest in convincing others of their point of view, or who are simply relaying information without thinking critically about it. This book explores ways to achieve more nuanced and balanced perspectives on a wide range of issues.
In a society in which science and technology drive the economy and infiltrate every aspect of daily life, it is dangerous for an elite few to make the decisions about how technology is used, who will be given access to it, and how money is spent to research scientific solutions to societal problems. Ironically, those with the power to make these decisions rarely have any background in science. Therefore, they are especially vulnerable to being hoodwinked by those who hold stake in an issue and have the money to get their voices heard. Yet, we too can make our voices heard through sound, evidence-based political, consumer, and medical decisions. To do this, we need to be armed with the knowledge that makes it difficult for clever stakeholders to deceive us.
Too many people lost confidence in their ability to understand science because they did poorly in science class in high school. However, even folks who excelled in high school science classes and majored in a scientific discipline in college are rarely adequately prepared to think critically about the science they encounter in their daily lives. High school and even college science tends to be focused on facts, formulae, and experiments with known outcomes. In the real world, there is much more uncertainty and interpretation. Decisions about contemporary scientific issues often must be made on the basis of incomplete information, and conflicting viewpoints are the norm rather than the exception. This book unravels the complexity of such issues to help scientists and nonscientists alike identify hogwash and balance tradeoffs to make well- reasoned decisions about science in everyday life.
� Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
81 of 84 people found the following review helpful.
Critical Thinking for Everyone
By Dr H
This book will not tell you what to think; it will teach you how to evaluate what others -want- you to think. If I were teaching a course on Critical Thinking, I would use this book as the central textbook; never before have I seen such a concise, readable coverage of the topic in a single volume. Each component of the process is identified, described, and presented with real-world examples.
At a time when everyone is trying to sell us something -- be it material goods or strange new ideas -- critical thinking is essential for survival. Whether you are trying to figure out where to take a stand on global warming, or how to not get ripped off by the local used-car salesman, this book will help. *Everyone* should read this book: I can only give it five stars here, but it rates many more. Excellent job!
43 of 44 people found the following review helpful.
An excellent guide to critical thinking
By Abacus
A good way to read this book is to start with the conclusion where the author shares twenty thinking tools to evaluate findings. This is an abstract of the entire book including all the critical thinking processes the author covers.
This is an excellent book that provides the qualitative critical thinking necessary for making better rational decisions regarding purchases, health care, and lifestyle. Many books impart the statistics to differentiate what is truly different from what is not. But, few books focus on framing the question correctly, understanding the biases of the stakeholders, and how to evaluate the findings. Ultimately, the qualitative thinking the author imparts is as important as the quantitative knowledge imparted by math books.
The author does an excellent job explaining how science works. It is a constant feedback loop of battling hypothesis and rebuttals that confuse the public. But, if you make an effort to understand the issue, you will grasp the evolving nuances of the arguments. Through this process our knowledge invariably advances.
Some highlights of the book include the matrix of stakeholders issues on page 34 regarding Global Warming, Drug approval, Genetically engineered food, and Mad cow disease. This matrix succinctly fleshes out all stakeholders positions on those four complex issues. The table of evidence being studied to understand climate change on page 83 is really thorough. Also, the concept of "pseudosymmetry of scientific authority" as explained on page 16 is interesting. It means the Media sometimes allocates as much print to both sides of an issue when the vast majority of the scientific community is on one side (that's why it is called pseudosymmetry). The entire chapter 5 on differentiating between cause and coincidence is excellent. Chapter 7 on interpreting statistics is also very good including its specific section on elucidating hidden confounding factors. Within this chapter, she also states the most important phrase in statistics: "results can be statistically significant without being statistically meaningful." Or given a large enough sample size, stat tests invariably uncover at least small differences which may be trivial. Chapter 9 is an interesting overview of widespread thinking flaws including anchoring, confirmation bias, confusing randomness for a trend, overgeneralization, and mistaking cause and effect. Those themes are now often covered in the trendy topic of behavioral economics. Chapter 10 discloses many websites that are helpful in investigating various claims.
On the other hand, I also found an error and a debatable position. On page 78, the diagram mapping out a clinical study should have Group 1 getting a placebo and Group 2 getting the drug. The diagram instead shows Group 1 receiving nothing and Group 2 receiving both the placebo and the drug. I bet this has confused many readers. Additionally, the mentioned concept of pseudosymmetry is very interesting. But, one should not immediately derive that science is a popularity contest and accept that when many more scientists are on one side of the issue they are right. This is not necessarily so. Thomas S. Kuhn, in his classic "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," has exposed that correct new scientific ideas often come up against massive resistance from the scientific establishment hoisting the status quo. This suggests that sometimes pseudosymmetry is not so "pseudo" after all.
If this subject interests you, I recommend Motulsky Intuitive Biostatistics: A Nonmathematical Guide to Statistical Thinking that will provide you a strong quantitative foundation to evaluate any hypothesis. I also liked Greenhalgh How to Read a Paper: The Basics of Evidence-based Medicine and Stanovich formidable What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought. Both books explore various facets of Seethaler's critical thinking in greater details.
44 of 53 people found the following review helpful.
Learn how to think about science in the media
By Science Goddess
[[VIDEOID:33049831]]Hi, this is Joanne, a bioengineering instructor at the University of Illinois. I read science books and review them. See more at my youtube site [...]
The review for Dr. Seethaler's book begins several minutes in.
This book is a fabulous manual to help readers learn how to think critically about scientific information we are bombarded with via the news.
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