Well, now I feel squishkly.
There’s a lot I can get behind in the skeptics movement; I’m a (former) scientist so of course I love science. I think more needs to be done to educate non-scientists about how science works. I think homeopathy works as well as drinking a glass of water (because that’s all you’re getting with homeopathy) and I’m a pretty big booster of vaccinations (unless, for documented, scientific, medical reasons, such as a suppressed immune system, one cannot safely be vaccinated). But I don’t think being an arrogant dickhead about being a skeptic, as Shermer comes off in these seventy short essays, is a way to go about convincing anyone of anything. Plus the squishkliness.
Skeptics aren’t big on faith. That’s fine. You don’t have to believe what you don’t believe in. But I really don’t see the harm if someone also accepts, say, evolution, and believes in God, as long as they recognize that the scientific method isn’t applicable to a belief in God. But I can’t see Shermer being fine with that. I can see Shermer, if the tone in this book is anything like how he is in person, berating someone for believing in God, even if that person’s belief has no impact on their acceptance of science. Shermer is like Christopher Hitchens or any of them: not going to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with them. Is the goal of the skeptic movement to illuminate the non-scientific about science, or is it to be a pretentious ass about being “smarter” than those with religious or magical or pseudo-scientifc convictions? My money is on the second.
Plus, the essays here aren’t even that convincing. They can’t be. They are all short, seven hundred to one thousand word tidbits, which is not enough space to expound on much of anything. I don’t really see the point of putting them together in a book since all-in-all, the flippancy of their length make the whole book almost pointless. Scientists will already know this stuff. Anti-scientists are unlikely to keep reading after Shermer essentially calls them morons. So who’s the audience? Skeptical sycophants? I thought sycophants were exactly what skeptics want to avoid.
And I’m going to go back to the squishklyness. I recognize my squishkliness is unfair. The book should be judged on its own merits, which, in my opinion, is a bunch of slight, antagonistic essays that will be lauded by people who already agree with everything Shermer stands for, in a scientific sense. Even I agree with his science stuff. I just don’t agree with his tone, style, and alleged behaviour. Or his dismissal of the Humanities’ concern about science being a white, male, cabal (especially since the majority of scientists he mentions in his essays are white and male).
I got very little out of this experience.
Skeptic by Michael Shermer went on sale January 12, 2016.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.