Nonsense on Stilts

This is not just another “debunking” book. I appreciated the author’s ability to knowledgeably move from examples of science, non-science, and pseudoscience. He skillfully explains his reasoning, pragmatically using logic and epistemology as a philosopher as well as a scientist.

Every now and again we all need to review how we think, about anything and every thing. Our culture currently requires science, data to move use forward (or not). Having the tools, examples provided thoughtfully, even entertainingly here are valuable. I'm better off, I've gained in my perspective.

The author goes into the edge cases, including how to tell if someone is really the "new Galileo" vs being a crank. If you're tired of arguments that stay on the surface and want some more in-depth tools to sort out science vs pseudo-science, it's a good read.

With a title like "Nonsense on Stilts" and a publisher description promising that the book will "separate fact from fantasy," I initially expected a fairly stereotypical work debunking such topics as astrology, dowsing, and creationism much like some of the works of other authors like James Randi or Michael Shermer. While this book does indeed spend some time explaining what's wrong with astrology and creationism (and both Randi's and Shermer's names make appearances in the text), this is actually a much more serious work in the philosophy of science. Its stated goal is to help the reader solve the "demarcation problem" of identifying the distinctions or borders between science, non-science, and pseudoscience.While unexpected, the result is a book that is as important as it is timely. The Information Age has given us unprecedented access to novel arguments, facts, and opinions, but our educational institutions and media have largely failed to prepare most people to critically engage with such materials. Worse, even our leading "public intellectuals" often fail to clearly define the boundaries of their expertise or even to identify the qualitative differences between what they consider to be good science and what they consider to be pseudoscience. Pigliucci's book is a valiant attempt to draw the boundaries between science and pseudoscience, not only in terms of the few examples he provides, but in abstract theoretical terms applicable to any other issue or phenomenon.While I may quibble with specific points of the author's philosophy, I think the book is an overall success, and I admire the care with which the author crafted his points, drawing important distinctions between, say, the "hard" and "soft" sciences or the differences between scientific areas of inquiry (evolutionary biology, for instance) and humanistic fields which may merely be informed by scientific inquiry (evolutionary psychology, for example), all while making it clear that the distinction between these disciplines is an epistemological one with little bearing on the quality of research produced in such fields. The author's treatment of pseudoscience, on the other hand, is (justifiably) much harsher. The reader interested in polemical rants against specific pseudosciences will likely be disappointed, however. While the author doesn't hide his own opinions on such matters (in fact, his tangential asides regarding such matters occasionally distract from the point he's trying to make), they are not the focus of the book. Disappointing as that might be to much of the modern skeptical movement, the result is a much more effective guide to thinking about science.There are two competing philosophies with which the author takes particular issue: scientism and postmodernism. Both very much deserve the author's criticism and our scorn, though I think he fails to strike the right balance in the tone of his criticism. While both are incorrect philosophical positions, I would argue that postmodernism presents the much larger threat to reasonable scholarship. This book, then, would have benefited had the author dedicated more pages to delivering a more forceful critique of postmodern philosophy (which I would call the very embodiment of "nonsense on stilts") and fewer pages to the scientistic perspective which few practicing scientists actually endorse (despite the author's laundry list of noted scientists and science communicators who have at least flirted with scientism).That having been said, the only portion of the book that I think actually missed its mark was the sixth chapter concerning public intellectuals and think tanks. While the author's contention that think tanks are ideological organizations dedicated to the perpetuation of their own opinions rather than impartial scientific research is largely correct, his argument that public intellectualism has largely fallen out of favor, replaced by these organizations is unconvincing. Worse, the chapter fails to offer a satisfactory definition of what qualifies one as an intellectual (much less a public intellectual). That's not to say the chapter contains no good points. Rather, my complaint is simply that the chapter's brevity offers insufficient space to fully develop these ideas (the economist Thomas Sowell dedicated an entire book to a similar topic in his "Intellectuals and Society"). Furthermore, the comparison between public intellectuals (whatever they may be) and think tanks devolves rapidly into a list of think tank publications of which the author disapproves rather than (as would have been more productive) analyzing the changing and increasingly-democratized marketplace for intellectual content in the Internet age.Despite these flaws, on the whole I found this book to be at once accessible and intellectually stimulating. Many people who claim to be either scientists or devotees of the scientific enterprise would benefit greatly from a study of its philosophical treatment of the subject.

Nonsense on Stilts; Massimo Pigliucci: I had high hopes. The review that persuaded me to buy this book seemed to promise a scientist’s view of science vs. all the rest: pseudoscience, superstition, religion, and faith.Sadly, Pigliucci needed to have or needed to heed a strict editor. The writing is very un-focused, rambling, conversational, superficial, and full of the worst sort of Science 101 entertainment. It was hard to follow his purpose, unless it was, “see how clever I am.” He actually spent a chapter summarizing another author’s book that I have already read.After a while I started skimming, stopping to read carefully when some topic grabbed my interest. Finally in Chapter 7 he showed his hand: “The goal of this book is to map the complex territory dividing science from pseudoscience…” In chapter 7!I had hoped for a meaningful discussion of the contrasts between science and religion from the perspective of a trained scientist, or at least a useful discussion of epistemology. Prepare for disappointment.

The author would have us know science from bunk, a laudable goal, but he is asking to accept his position on things that in no way can be scientifically discerned.9/11, an inside job is impossible? I was trading on 9/11. No sooner than I made my trade, the first plane went into tower number 1. While the market was shut down, I began doing some research. Turns out every airline stock was shorted or had put options bought a few days before that happened. Unless someone had foreknowledge of what would happen that morning in New York City, there would have been no reason to short the airline stocks.Someone knew it was going to happen, and they let it happen without telling a soul. Billions were made.Now, when an author suggests such a thing as an event being a non-event, I will be too skeptical to dive in further.My advice would be for the author to stick with science and shy away from what cannot be scientifically proven.

Awful book. Started with Chapter 1 on what was meant to be on the topic of uncertainty (how we know or don't know) but the author doesn't seem to know the difference between aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty. The author rails against pseudo science and anti intellectualism, stating more than once we have an abundance of low quality public intellectuals, then proceeds to laud a couple of low quality public intellectuals (hey, anyone that believes socialism, which has an unbroken record of failure, is the way to go obviously isn't a high quality public intellectual). Last chapter I could get through was the one on climate change---the author made his arguments by discounting one celebrity's arguments (by celebrity I mean well known person who isn't an expert in the field) but lauding another celebrity's arguments. Hard to believe you can get more anti intellectual than that, using the views of two non experts to make your point on any scientific subject. You may have loved this book, but sorry, I just don't see it.