Criticism
Critics have argued that the positions advanced in the book are contrary to the mainstream scientific consensus on a wide range of issues, and reflect a political rather than a scientific agenda. In a review for Skeptical Inquirer, Chris Mooney noted:
It offers, in one place, a nice catalogue of all the discredited arguments that are ritualistically used to undermine evolution, global warming, and much else that’s well established in modern science. Rather hilariously, if you look closely at the book's cover image on Amazon.com you will see the tagline "Liberals have hijacked science for long enough. Now it's our turn." "Our turn" to "hijack science," presumably.Mooney concludes that the book is "a very saddening and depressing read", and that mistakes and individual biases notwithstanding, scientists have "thanks to the scientific process--come up with a great deal of important and relevant knowledge", and that Bethel "radically distorts and undermines their conclusions and findings, while whipping up resentment of the scientific community among rank-and-file political conservatives."
Another review described Bethell as "an ultra-conservative, right-wing religious zealot" that...
...takes the research actual scientists have worked on for years and either twists the findings to fit his own narrow-minded agenda or he simply announces to the world that the efforts of dedicated, trained men and women in the fields of medicine, chemistry, molecular biology, genetics, etc. are just “junk science.” He produces reams of type about subjects of which he has no clear understanding and makes no effort to educate himself on matters pertaining to actual scientific method and study.Read more about this topic: The Politically Incorrect Guide To Science
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries, and Congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden. Meantime, I seem to have been drifting into criticism myself. But that is nothing. At the worst, criticism is nothing more than a crime, and I am not unused to that.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It’s the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“As far as criticism is concerned, we don’t resent that unless it is absolutely biased, as it is in most cases.”
—John Vorster (1915–1983)