A necessary and propulsive argument that offers optimism in the face of one of the world’s most destructive forces.
Pursuing science and truth in the age of disinformation.
On the tail of a historic deadly pandemic, in the midst of a climate crisis that threatens the world, perhaps the greatest danger is the overwhelming rise of disinformation that threatens to crush and diminish science that might save us. With that, two renowned scientists—climatologist Mann and pediatrician and global health expert Hotez—who are veterans of the disinformation wars have come together to create a work that seeks to provide a way out. The authors identify what they call “the p’s”—five key forces creating a dangerous modern realm of anti-science: “the plutocrats, the authoritarian petrostates (assisted by polluters and the politicians who advocate for them), the ‘pros’ who use their professional (or in some cases scholarly) credentials to deceive or promote unsupported contrarian views, the propagandists who amplify them on social media and other venues, and, increasingly, the press, including even the mainstream press.” The narrative reveals, in compelling detail, how these forces weave a complicated web of public deception and political danger in the face of some of humanity’s greatest challenges. With clear-eyed prose moving through chapters that explain each of these actors, the authors provide a clear, persuasive road map to fight back against the forces that diminish and dismiss science. The result is an empowering work in a world that can often feel lost to untruths. “While there is urgency—unlike any we’ve ever known—there is still agency,” they write. “We can still avert disaster if we can understand the nature of the mounting anti-science threat and formulate a strategy to counter it.”
A necessary and propulsive argument that offers optimism in the face of one of the world’s most destructive forces.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781541705494
Page Count: 368
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Yes: it's high time for a de-romanticized, de-mythified, close-up retelling of the U.S. Space Program's launching—the inside story of those first seven astronauts.
But no: jazzy, jivey, exclamation-pointed, italicized Tom Wolfe "Mr. Overkill" hasn't really got the fight stuff for the job. Admittedly, he covers all the ground. He begins with the competitive, macho world of test pilots from which the astronauts came (thus being grossly overqualified to just sit in a controlled capsule); he follows the choosing of the Seven, the preparations for space flight, the flights themselves, the feelings of the wives; and he presents the breathless press coverage, the sudden celebrity, the glorification. He even throws in some of the technology. But instead of replacing the heroic standard version with the ring of truth, Wolfe merely offers an alternative myth: a surreal, satiric, often cartoony Wolfe-arama that, especially since there isn't a bit of documentation along the way, has one constantly wondering if anything really happened the way Wolfe tells it. His astronauts (referred to as "the brethren" or "The True Brothers") are obsessed with having the "right stuff" that certain blend of guts and smarts that spells pilot success. The Press is a ravenous fool, always referred to as "the eternal Victorian Gent": when Walter Cronkite's voice breaks while reporting a possible astronaut death, "There was the Press the Genteel Gent, coming up with the appropriate emotion. . . live. . . with no prompting whatsoever!" And, most off-puttingly, Wolfe presumes to enter the minds of one and all: he's with near-drowing Gus Grissom ("Cox. . . That face up there!—it's Cox. . . Cox knew how to get people out of here! . . . Cox! . . ."); he's with Betty Grissom angry about not staying at Holiday Inn ("Now. . . they truly owed her"); and, in a crude hatchet-job, he's with John Glenn furious at Al Shepard's being chosen for the first flight, pontificating to the others about their licentious behavior, or holding onto his self-image during his flight ("Oh, yes! I've been here before! And I am immune! I don't get into corners I can't get out of! . . . The Presbyterian Pilot was not about to foul up. His pipeline to dear Lord could not be clearer"). Certainly there's much here that Wolfe is quite right about, much that people will be interested in hearing: the P-R whitewash of Grissom's foul-up, the Life magazine excesses, the inter-astronaut tensions. And, for those who want to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt throughout, there are emotional reconstructions that are juicily shrill.
But most readers outside the slick urban Wolfe orbit will find credibility fatally undermined by the self-indulgent digressions, the stylistic excesses, and the broadly satiric, anti-All-American stance; and, though The Right Stuff has enough energy, sass, and dirt to attract an audience, it mostly suggests that until Wolfe can put his subject first and his preening writing-persona second, he probably won't be a convincing chronicler of anything much weightier than radical chic.
Pub Date: Sept. 24, 1979
ISBN: 0312427565
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1979
BOOK TO SCREEN
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Solid data and reasoned conjecture strike a harmonious balance in a new SETI.
A jocular title does not even hint at the real wonders of this cook’s tour of alien life.
Astrophysicist Frank, author of Light of the Stars and The Constant Fire, has been obsessed with the idea of extraterrestrial life since childhood. After years of dreaming about exploring the cosmos for signs of intelligent life, he and other scientists are on the threshold of a new era of unprecedented discovery in the field of astrobiology. He details not only recent revelations in the detection of exoplanets, but also the search for technosignatures, indicators of technologically advanced species on worlds light years distant. These are not merely elements of science fiction. They are realities now within human reach thanks to the continuing development of ultra-powerful telescopes and to the sea change in a scientific culture that once scoffed at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Frank’s enthusiasm is contagious, occasionally over-exuberant, and there is plenty of hard science in this survey, which the author presents with economy and accessibility. The book brims with fascinating facts and speculations, from the particulars of astrobiology to Dyson spheres. Frank’s cosmic tour makes stops at such milestones as the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation, showing how these 1950s advances continue to inform our thinking about the possibility of technological civilizations. The author also recounts the origins and current manifestations of the UFO craze and how the advancement of actual science has been impeded by 70 years of pop culture images that haunt our collective expectations. Frank advises we look for alien life where it most likely exists: deep space. He also stresses the key point that we have only begun to peer into the universe with instruments capable of breakthrough discoveries, a useful riposte to critics of the effort. Throughout, Frank champions the importance of demanding standards of evidence: “They are, literally, why science works.”
Solid data and reasoned conjecture strike a harmonious balance in a new SETI.Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780063279735
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A solid foundational education in a handful of lively scientific topics.
Two science podcasters answer their mail.
In this illustrated follow-up to We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe (2017), Cham, a cartoonist and former research associate and instructor at Caltech, and Whiteson, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, explain the basic science behind subjects that seem to preoccupy the listeners of their podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe. Most of the questions involve physics or astrophysics and take the form of, is such-and-such possible?—e.g., teleportation, alien visitors, building a warp drive, entering a black hole). The authors emphasize that they are answering as scientists, not engineers. “A physicist will say something is possible if they don’t know of a law of physics that prevents it.” Thus, a spaceship traveling fast enough to reach the nearest star in a reasonable amount of time is not forbidden by the laws of physics, but building one is inconceivable. Similarly, wormholes and time travel are “not known to be impossible”—as are many other scenarios. Some distressing events are guaranteed. An asteroid will strike the Earth, the sun will explode, and the human race will become extinct, but studies reveal that none are immediate threats. Sadly, making Mars as habitable as Earth is possible but only with improbably futuristic technology. For those who suspect that we are living in a computer simulation, the authors describe what clues to look for. Readers may worry that the authors step beyond their expertise when they include chapters on the existence of an afterlife or the question of free will. Sticking closely to hard science, they deliver a lucid overview of brain function and the debate over the existence of alternate universes that is unlikely to provoke controversy. The authors’ work fits neatly into the recently burgeoning market of breezy pop-science books full of jokes, asides, and cartoons that serve as introductions to concepts that require much further study to fully understand.
A solid foundational education in a handful of lively scientific topics.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-18931-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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