Counterknowledge

by Damian Thompson

This is an exploration and examination of contemporary pseudo-knowledge.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Politics, Skepticism, Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy

161 pages, non-fiction

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

English journalist, editor and author.

He has written two books about apocalyptic belief and one about conspiracy theories or "counterknowledge", which he describes as "misinformation packaged to look like fact"

Reviews

[Eric Woodard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book, hoping to find studies and facts refuting modern conspiracy theories like alternative medicine and 9/11 truthers. However, what I found was a slim volume that spent more time asserting its truth than proving it (ironic, considering that was the tactic he criticized in his opponents).

The main problem with the book was its tone. It was written for somebody who already believed that this counterknowledge was pseudoscience--that audience was invited to sneer and deride. What I was hoping to see was a book I could recommend to people, a book that was designed to convince the credulous that their beliefs are not only dangerous, but demonstrably untrue. Instead, the book used the word "horseshit" (no joke) too often to be taken seriously.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. Honestly I did. But Damian Thompson was just such an unappealing advocate for the forces of reason. Although not as overtly obnoxious as - say - Christopher Hitchens (or Richard Dawkins, in his more recent writings), he doesn't manage to avoid the trap of self-righteous superiority. After a couple of chapters, it's like being trapped at a dinner party with a know-it-all guest - you don't care how right he is - you just wish he'd shut up already.

Not that his targets aren't worthy. They fall into three main categories: pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and what might be thought of as examples of "popular delusions and the madness of crowds". Thompson gives particular scrutiny to:

# Creation "science" , "intelligent design" and the assorted shenanigans of evolution-bashers.
# The prevalence of untested, unproven "alternative therapies" (which he refers to as "Quack remedies"), from homeopathy to reflexology to aromatherapy.
# Assorted conspiracy theories (primarily related to 9/11)
# Examples of "pseudohistory" - Jesus's lovechild survives, but the Catholic Church maintains a conspiracy of silence. The Phoenicians/Israelites/Celts/Greeks/Vikings/Chinese discovered America in (choose your pre-Columbus date). Aliens (or technologically super-savvy ancient civilizations) roamed the earth, building the pyramids and Mayan temples until perishing in the lost city of Atlantis!
# Marketing phenomena such as "The Secret", dubious dietary supplements, QLink bracelets with crystal-based 'healing powers'.

All of this makes Thompson righteously indignant. And I'm certainly not going to defend any of them here - indeed, all this bogus 'knowledge', shoddy scholarship, and fuzzy thinking does deserve our censure. But from a purely pragmatic point of view of persuading the reader, Thompson would be more effective if he didn't wax quite so white-hot indignant about each and every example he cites. After all, not every example of 'counterknowledge' has equally serious consequences - some are considerably more damaging than others. Bogus science which denies the link between HIV and AIDS, or which makes unwarranted claims about a putative link between MMR vaccination and autism is clearly actively dangerous, as it can cause people to avoid therapies proven to be beneficial. Those who promulgate this kind of misinformation, in the service of their own political or profit-driven agenda, deserve to be challenged and possibly earn our moral censure. But no matter how much the success of Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret" or Gavin Menzies's "1421: The Year China Discovered America" might irritate Thompson (and it clearly frosts his eyeballs enormously), it is hard to see these books as being quite as dangerous or reprehensible as,say, holocaust denial used to foment anti-Semitism or the South African government's distortion of information related to the cause of AIDS.

Thompson's uncalibrated indignation has the unfortunate side-effect of suggesting that every instance of 'counterknowledge' deserves equal condemnation, which ultimately hurts his argument, though not fatally. A far more serious flaw throughout the book is what I can only term as a persistent anti-Islamic strain, which is hard to ignore, and seems particularly unfortunate given the author's position as editor-in-chief of The Catholic Herald .

For instance, Thompson claims that "Islamic Creationism is turning into a serious problem for british sixth-form colleges and universities", but fails to substantiate this claim with anything but the flimsiest of anecdotal evidence. He goes on to assert that the damage of Creation Science is limited within the United States because it is still "essentially located within the American cultic milieu", while "Islamic creationism" by contrast is a unified and increasingly influential component of a wider Islamic worldview". Which would be OK if he didn't then go on to establish that almost all of the anti-Darwinist propaganda promulgated in the name of Islam is the product of a single individual. In these sections Thompson appears clearly guilty of applying differential standards of evidence to support his claims.

In the end, the most useful part of this book was the "Further Reading" section that concludes it.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Counterknowledge is a slim book about a big problem: the rising tide of pseudo-science and conspiracy-mongering that threatens to drown out real, empirical science and history in the public consciousness. It gets off to a promising start, but unfortunately it drifts for a dozen chapters before sputtering to a non-finish.

Thompson makes noises indicating that he'll address (at least in his eyes) the root causes of his rising tide. What he does is rant for a couple hundred pages about trends that annoy him: nutritionists, chiropractors, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, The Secret, and young-earth creationists -- specifically Muslim young-earth creationists. He calls these things "counterknowledge" but is admittedly dodgy about supplying rigorous criteria by which something can be labeled as such.

The result is an inconsistent, uneven selection of pet peeves united by the common thread of cultural and pseudo-intellectual contrarianism. After a few chapters, an undercurrent starts to emerge. At a dozen or so places, he characterizes the gullible vectors (or malicious originators) of counterknowledge as 'left-wing' or 'left-wing liberals.' Several times, he mentions that the problem "isn't as simple as blaming a bunch of aging hippies;" he doesn't elaborate on who else might be susceptible, though he admits that "capitalism" can sometimes encourage controversial but incorrect iconoclasts.

On closer inspection, the choices of anecdotes seem even more odd. An entire chapter is spent railing about people who thing the US Government knew about the 9/11 attacks beforehand, but nothing is said about the much larger percentage of the country that still believes Iraqis were behind the terrorist attacks. An entire chapter is spent berating young-earth Creationists for ignoring scientific consensus... but no mention is made of climate change skeptics, whose minority ideas have a far greater impact on public policy.

Thompson has pet theories about why these forms of public ignorance are on the rise, and briefly explains them. Ironically, he offers no evidence and quickly dismisses alternative theories as unsatisfying: the very sin he accuses the quacks and hucksters of perpetrating. It might be that the he's a self-proclaimed conservative Catholic capitalist (CCC?) unwilling to look closely at some of his own sacred cows. Or -- even simpler -- it might just be that the book's introduction promises more than its bloggy op-ed format can deliver.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Damian Thompson lays out the very considerable problem of a failure in critical thinking that has so deeply permeated popular culture. In many ways I found his assessment to be quite significant, if not specifically enumerated in ways that exclude certain issues that do indeed have solid scientific bases. On the whole he is quite on the mark as far as he goes.

My concern is that he becomes rather redundant in his complaint and offers little in the way of a prescription that would solve the problem. In reading his continual disconcertedness, I found myself becoming more and more impatient.

As a scientist, I do find myself disturbed with pseudo-science and conspiracy theories. When I hear of one or another "herbal cure" for this or that ailment, or this or that scientific break through, I look for the original study, and weigh the methodology and conclusions to draw my own conclusions. (Even science can be flawed.) Dr. Thompson doesn't give this prescription nor does he give any sort of approach to making science available to everyone, beyond the halls of academia.

Complain all you want, but look beyond the complaint and design an enthusiasm in popular culture that can make science open to everyone, so critical thinking becomes the popular habit, and not simply an unknown in the public eye. People aren't stupid, they can learn.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having had time to digest this book, I think a lot of people's reviews on this book miss the point. Read the subtitle again: "How We Surrendered To Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science And Fake History."

Notice the subtitle is not "How to Refute Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science And Fake History" or "How to Stop Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science And Fake History."

"Counterknowledge" does not dive deep into refuting pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and what not. How could it, coming in at about 160 pages, including bibliography? Instead, "Counterknowledge" just gives you context to understand some of the 'why' people get taken in by these crazy ideas.

Admittedly, this book's tone could be categorized as alarmist, but I think that may not be entirely uncalled for. I don't think he wrote this book to convert anyone; I think he wrote it to be a quick read to raise awareness to a growing problem: pseudoscience, complementary and alternative medicine, and pseudohistory making inroads, and thus corrupting, science, medicine, and history.

If you look at this book as the author's way of sounding the warning bells, I think it is an excellent book.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

You think all of this Aztec calendar stuff is bizarre? It’s just a U.S. tradition. Damian Thompson’s Counterknowledge: How we surrendered to conspiracy theories, quack medicine, bogus science, and fake history has an amazing number of them. [Please note that all page numbers in this review correspond to my eBook edition.] For example, Samuel Davies Baldwin published a book in 1854 that asserted that Armageddon would be fought on U.S. soil, that the Semites were an inferior “yellow” race, that the numerical values for the word “Latinos” equaled “666” (I’m sure a lot of our Tea Party folks would like that one), and that the number of Christians in American in 1776 totaled 144,000 (p. 36). Remember the Aum Shinrikyo sect that pumped sarin gas into the Tokyo subway during the mid’90s? They believed in reincarnation, “earthquake weapons,” UFOs, Masonic conspiracies, and a 12th century manuscript known as the prophecies of St. Malachy (p. 38). Of course, it appears that last document was itself forged in the 16th century (p. 39).

Thompson’s book is both fascinating and shocking. It both posits an idea of why conspiracies, esoteric “mysteries,” and a stubborn resistance to empirical evidence are more popular than rational ideas and catalogs some of the worst abuses in the present day. I found it insightful when he suggested, “The fact that a subject is genuinely puzzling, that there are vast gaps in our understanding of it, does not lower the standard of evidence we require in order to fill in the gaps. …We do not need to have unraveled the mysteries of quantum mechanics (something no physicist would claim to have done) to know that cancer patients who overcome their illness have not made a literal ‘quantum jump’, as the New Age medical guru Deepak Chopra ludicrously claims.” (pp. 48-49) I like his understanding that “…the pressure of modern life, coupled with the demands of an insatiable media, was turning ‘microtales of individual affliction’ into widespread panic about imaginary evils-networks of devil worshippers, a mysterious ‘fatigue virus’, invading aliens and a bogus psychological disorder.” (p. 54) But the real reason people cling to such irrationality is because, “People who think they have been entrusted with a big secret feel empowered by this knowledge. If they know the ‘truth’ about 9/11, or the ‘real’ cause of cancer, or the law of attraction, then they possess information that can change the world. Although the business of world transformation may have to be left to others, they can at least score points at a dinner party. Meanwhile, if the ‘message’ is sufficiently exciting, their friends will want some of this power for themselves.” (p. 234)

Thompson traces the spread of conspiracies, quackeries, and reactionary counter-science to the rise of postmodernist claims (p.56). He also recognizes the role of the Internet in spreading bogus information, noting: “Wikipedia itself is, by its nature, unreliable; a fair amount of counterknowledge creeps into its database every day. But, so long as its users are aware of its serious limitations, it is a useful resource.” (p. 101) He goes on to assert, “Irrationality is a very infectious disease as we see from the United States.” (pp. 107-8) But, then this British author goes on to mitigate his anti-colonial sentiment somewhat by admitting “That dig at America is misleading; Muslim Creationism is a far more efficient carrier of irrationality than American Christian fundamentalism.” (p. 108)

In addition to scams like The Secret with its law of attraction, Thompson stakes out other atrocities. Did you know about the following? “In northern Nigeria, Islamic leaders have issued a fatwa declaring the polio vaccine to be an American conspiracy to sterilize Muslims. Polio has returned to the area, and pilgrims have carried it to Mecca and Yemen. In January 2007, the parents of 24,000 children in Pakistan refused to allow health workers to vaccinate their children because radical mullahs had told them the same idiotic story.” (p. 61) Did you know that some interpreters of the Muslim holy book (Qur’an) have argued that Noah’s Ark was “steam-powered?” (p. 113)

But Thompson doesn’t just pick on fundamentalist Christians (he really doesn’t understand authentic “Intelligent Design” but confused it with the radical right’s attempts to use the terminology on the same old, same old “young earth” creationism—an unfair and uninformed judgment as bogus as some of the citations in which he displays the lack of consistent methodology in others) and fundamentalist Muslims, he also goes after the Templar and DaVinci Code folks. Both Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the fiction/conspiracy machines that drive the ideas of Jesus’ lineage and secret coalitions ruling the world were founded on the idea of the Priory of Sion—allegedly dating back to the time of the Crusades. In reality, “The Priory of Sion, it turned out, was founded as recently as the late 1940s by Pierre Plantard, a fake French aristocrat; the ‘medieval’ Priory documents were knocked up by Plantard’s con-artist friends Philippe de Cherisey and Gerard de Sede in the 1960s, who inserted the code words as a tease.” (p. 129) And, courageously, Thompson attacks Afrocentrism. “It is this element of moral blackmail that distinguishes Afrocentrism from other forms of historical counterknowledge. Routledge [a UK publisher] prides itself on its rigour; I find it hard to believe that it would allow a scholar to make the sweeping and unsupported statements that we find in Asante’s History of Africa, which is supposed to be a basic textbook, unless it was afraid of being accused of racism.” (pp. 166-167)

Think it’s only academia and the church/mosque which are guilty of promoting counterknowledge? Thompson charges, “The free market likes counterknowledge. The troubled newspaper industry—all of it, not just the tabloids—increasingly relies on fascinating but untrue stories to sell papers. Specialist reporters are becoming an expensive luxury; and it is a brave young reporter who refuses to ‘follow up’ a report that has appeared in a rival publication simply because it is based on sloppy research. In particular, there is nothing like a health panic to boost circulation.” (p. 291) I also agreed with, “Thanks to the internet, millions of people have unconsciously absorbed postmodern relativism. To adapt the old Scientology slogan: if it’s a fact for you, it’s a fact. And your computer will hook you up with people who share your views, however ludicrous.” (p. 298) Alas, as a university professor, I resonate with: “These days, kids can’t tell the difference between credible news by objective professional journalists and what they read on joeshmoe.blogspot.com.” (p. 300)

Frankly, I don’t agree with everything Thompson writes, but I’m glad he wrote it. Someone need to do so. And just perhaps, it will help us move toward more rigorous methodologies in our approach to argumentation and critical thinking.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author debunks the pseudoscience and pseudohistory that have allowed what would once have been marginal ideas believed only be a few eccentrics and extremists to become mainstream. Not the book to read to debunk any individual idea or theory as he does not include enough detail, but worth reading to get a handle on the growth of "counterknowledge".

[Andrew (M) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do yourself a favour and don't bother with this book. I enjoy reading books about skepticism and science, so thought this would be an interesting and informative read. While I agree with just about everything written here, this book is useless in its stated purpose of combating what the author refers to as “counterknowledge” (belief in information that is demonstrably false).

A book about facts and reason should probably not rely so much on logical fallacies, faulty premises, and ad hominem attacks. There are no arguments about why counterknowledge beliefs are wrong besides attacks on credentials and associates, and occasional lines stating that “such and such as been shown to be false” or “there is no evidence for this claim”. You are left with a vague feeling that someone is patting you on the head saying “there, there, dear, don't trouble your pretty little head with the details”. Simply put, the author uses the exact same techniques as the garbage logic and “science” of those he would seek to oppose. The reader is left agreeing with his conclusions and appalled by his arguments.

Why would a book like this not explain such simple and obvious concepts as why a clinical trial is superior to a case study in assessing the effectiveness of a medical treatment? Why would it not at least describe the mountains of evidence to support true scientific and historical facts? There is so much more that this book could have offered, and instead it settles for intellectually facile and superficial arguments against counterknowledge. Towards the end of the book, the author writes about the success of bloggers in fighting back against counterknowledge with detailed critiques. This makes it even more of a surprise that he does none of this himself.

This book is little more than self-congratulatory intellectual masturbation for those who agree with the author. No one who disagrees with anything written here will be dissuaded from their beliefs, and those who already agree will find no new information to battle counterknowledge. Also, by choosing to attack only the most low-hanging fruit of the beliefs of fringe elements, the author provides no insight into more insidious and less obviously false counterknowledge. So what is the point?

Why does this book deserve even two stars? First, it includes a good bibliography where an interested reader can obtain actual information instead of the simplistic pseudo-arguments presented here. More importantly, the concept of counterknowledge is a useful on for society to assimilate, and this book promotes the concept reasonably well. More people need to understand that there is a difference between scientific theories that are eventually proven wrong (for example, that a mother’s behaviour causes autism) and claims that are not based on evidence, are demonstrably false, and are maintained only by fanatical devotion and uninformed media hysteria (the MMR vaccine scare). The existence of a book on this topic is worthwhile; it is a shame that this is the book we got.

[Krishna Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author describes how pseudo-science is being packaged and marketed heavily today and becoming more popular than ever. He shows how professional tricksters (without any professional credentials) have hijacked discussion on nutrition, medicine and vaccination. More people are falling prey to these tricks, making them rich and, thus, further encouraging more of the same. Respected publishing houses, not wanting to be left behind in the money game, are actively encouraging conspiracy theorists and pseudo-scientists.

The author lists a wide variety of such hoaxes such as 9/11 conspiracies, homeopathy, Holocaust denial, intelligent design, to name a few. He offers some hope that just as these frauds use today’s fast-paced communication channels to become popular, real scientists can expose them through the same mechanisms. He fears that the real potential for damage could be in countries that have not yet built a culture of scientific rigor. For example, while millions are suffering from AIDS in South Africa, the government keeps denying the real causes of AIDS and prevents the necessary medicines from reaching the dying.

[James]

Counterknowledge is effectively an essay expressing the author's dismay at the success and proliferation of beliefs that are provably untrue or intellectually unsupportable but nevertheless believed. The idea is simple enough that the entire midsection of the book comes across as more of a rant than an effective advancement of his argument. He talks in depth about types of counterknowledge, from pseudohistory to quack medicine, and actually provides fascinating and very readable accounts of the origins of some of the specific beliefs he tackles. Thompson does an especially good job throughout the middle of the book on choosing his topics well: while his agenda is simple enough to understand from the introduction, his examples belie simplistic analysis. He takes aim at some religiously motivated 'counterknowledge' (such as Intelligent Design) and some politically motivated (such as Afro-centric history).


Thompson does a very good job of not tackling too much by citing scholars whose work debunks charlatans rather than attempting to disprove the arguments himself. He moves through his examples, including 9/11 consipracy theories, holocaust denial, 'hyperdiffusionism,' homeopathy, "the year China discovered America," and much more, rapidly and with ease. Unfortunately, the sometime virtue of brevity is also the book's weakest part: I was unable to find a satisfying answer to the fundamental question of why counterknowledge is so appealing, or what makes it succeed.


To be sure, he does tackle that very issue. Sometimes it comes across almost as an ironic conspiracy theory as when he ascribes some counterknowledge success (I think more with incredulity at avertible disaster than admiration at elite conspiracy) effectively to coordination between authors, media, and publishing houses all hoping to get their share of a profitable pie. More often the explanation seems simply to be lacking, and I hope an additional volume (perhaps shorter or a revision of the first) could present a more complete theory for what makes counterknowledge stick (perhaps analysis of effective advertising or propaganda could be places to start?).


The account of why counterknowledge succeeds that Thompson does give in the final chapter maintains his admirable consistency of pointing out quackery wherever he sees it--in religious claims or those of the postmodern academy. He essentially faults two broad trends: (1) the 1960s' rejection of authority and concomittent intentional abdication of an ability to define objective reality; and (2) the wiles of rampant capitalism that lead news media and even prominent publishers to ignore intellectual integrity in pursuit of profits. Ironically, he mentions and himself declares unsatisfying the more sociological account that counterknowledge speaks to direct human emotinal insecurities rather than intellect. He (correctly) asserts that the concepts are hard to measure (fortunately, early in the book, he explicitly sets nonfalsifiable claims into a realm oustide both scientifically validated truth and counterknowledge), but to this reader, they nevertheless seem to drive at least the desires that cause publishers to capitulate to capitalism, and so his own account left me somewhat unsatisfied and wanting more.


Despite thus leaving himself room to continue to develop a more robust theory for what really perpetuates the stuff (we can hope!), Thompson does close on a hopeful note by giving, in true form, unsensational, and quite sensible advice: to be vigilant in upholding the Enlightenment ideals of truth.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I may have over rated this book but after reading a selection of the reviews here, all of which hated the book to an almost irrational degree (in my opinion - obviously) I thought I had to over-react just to make any significant impact. I am not going to rehash what the book is about - what I will say is that we are at the end of 2021 and there are many, many people in the UK, Europe (I separate the two not because I don't think the UK is part of Europe but because the UK doesn't seem to think it is part of anything except itself) the USA, etc. are not getting vaccinated against CoVid because of masses of 'counter knowledge'. I will only mention that the USA has had Trump as President for four years and again if that ain't a prefect example of 'counter knowledge' I don't know what is.

The targets in the book are to differing degrees losing their immediacy but, and this is what so many people don't seem to understand, that the examples are there just to illustrate our flight from truth. If you are going to take Homeopathy or Creationism seriously as science or that idiotic book '1421: The Year China Discovered the World' as history then it is not surprising that more children in America believe in Santa Claus then the Holocaust. It is also not surprising that the poor are ignored when books/organisations/lifestyle gurus etc. teach and promote the idea 'The only reason anyone does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their negative thoughts'. Which is saying that we don't have to do anything for anyone or about anything because it is all their own fault. If they had the right 'thoughts/positive-outlook' etc. all would be ok.

Read this book, or many others on the same subject and start thinking and getting others to try and think.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review is a little low in stars because I think the book could have used some editing and some deeper analysis in parts. But perhaps 2 stars is too low, because some this author presented some excellent points, albeit from a seemingly conservative view (meaning that he harped on the left wing too much), about the rise of "knowledge" that is not empirically based that is being touted as such. Examples he describes are beliefs in creationism, despite the near universal acceptance in the scientific community of evolution, of "alternative" medicine, when there should be only one kind of medicine -- that which is shown to actually work -- of conspiracy theories about 9/11, of Holocaust-deniers, and of crystal healers and others in the New Age community who believe that positive thinking combined with quantum physics will produce positive results (so I guess those raped and killed in Darfur just weren't optimistic enough about their futures). I was surprised to find a few of my own "beliefs" challenged in this book, such as the collection of aromatherapy I keep around (though it does smell terrific!). And I have been skeptical of the safety of vaccines though the author points out that the autism/MMR link is almost laughable from a scientific point of view. He also has a bit of anti-Muslim rant regarding their whole hearted acceptance of creationism and the failure (in his view) of the Muslim world to have top notch universities or a strong educational system, leaving, again in his perspective, Muslims particularly suspectible to belief in knowledge without empirical support. This was a quick read -- just a few hours -- but I found it quite thought-provoking.

[Braxton · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had an odd experience with this book, in that I agreed with pretty much everything the author said, but I didn't like the book. One of my main problems with it is that it has a pervasive hateful tone. It would have been better with less emotion and more analysis. Instead of a well thought out response to people who embrace conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and pseudo-history, it comes off as an angry rant, which makes it hard to take very seriously. secondly, and admittedly this is probably a bit nit-picky, but he seemed to use the phrase "cultic milieu" way too much. He used the phrase roughly two or three times per chapter, and when your book only has five chapters, it tends to stand out. Also, even though the book as little to no politics in it, the writer felt the need to point out if any person or publication he quoted was "left-wing". No one was pointed out as right-wing and their quotes weren't political at all, so why point it out?. The book also was very short. Clocking in at a slim 138 pages, this book just didn't have much content. The author doesn't really spend enough time analyzing the things that he is refuting and jumps from subject to subject far too quickly. The short length is probably a blessing in disguise though, because if it was longer I never would have finished the book.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a quick read that clearly reflects the dismay that many people feel about the retreat from rationalism - a retreat that seems to be on the increase.
The author makes a useful distinction between counterknowledge, described as misinformation packaged to look like fact, and non-fundamentalist religion, which is based on the faith of the individual.
There isn't a lot of new ground covered here. One only has to scan the media for all sorts of accounts of crazy ideas without a shred of scientific or forensic evidence to support them. Some of these ideas are relatively harmless, like astrology (unless you're Nancy Reagan), while some are downright dangerous, like the anti-vaccine rants of some Muslims and fundamentalist Christians.
One of the problems he does stress is how respectable newspapers and book publishers are sucked in to purveying this sort of bilge to the gullible public.
If this book does nothing else, it inspires people to engage in critical thinking. Sadly, the bilge-swallowing multitudes would never read a book like this.

[Brad Forbes · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not too bad, but could have been better. The author theorizes that we are devolving in to a society where there is no difference between fiction and reality; that people are buying in to worldviews that can be proven false. For example, he goes in to a good discussion of historical fiction, which is presented as fact in most cases (such as a book that leads the reader to believe that the Chinese landed in America decades before Columbus). Governments have used popular historical fiction to rewrite their own histories for self-serving purposes, which can be frightening. He also slams the hell out of 9/11 conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers, which is always fun. However, unless you are looking for a not-too-challenging read, I'd steer clear. There are better books out there about why people believe lies and the risks societies run when they believe their own fiction.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why do people believe information they know to be a lie?
A book for 2016 for sure.

[Jesús Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hoy en día gracias sobre todo al internet se difunde el pseudo conocimiento y la charlataneria que siempre han existido pero que no habían penetrado a las universidades cómo está ocurriendo

Hay una paradoja nunca la humanidad había tenido de tanto conocimiento sobre el mundo y la sociedad gracias a un mejor énvielo educativo y nunca tampoco el pseudo conocimiento había tenido tanta aceptación entre la gente

Este libro está dedicado a desmentir y a demostrar la falsedad de las curas milagrosas, del creacionismo de la pseudo historia y sobre todo a darnos información sobre la floreciente industria y ganancias del pseudo conocimiento

Este libro fue escrito antes de la os demos donde pudimos ver el daño hecho por los anti vacunas y por los adeptos a las teorías cospirativas de que el virus había surgido de un laboratorio

Uno de los principales daños que hace este contraconocimiento es afectar la salud de las personas, propiciar si muerte, aparte del negocio que es engañar a la gente

Al final del libro hay varias sugerencias para combatirlo, como el dice las vacunas y concluye definiendo lo que es un hecho: una cosa que se sabe ha ocurrido que existe o que es cierta .

[Steven H · Rating 3 out of 5]

A REJECTION OF PURPORTED ‘KNOWLEDGE’ THAT IS ACTUALLY FALSE

Damian Thompson is an English journalist and author, who is an associate editor of The Spectator. (He previously worked for the Catholic Herald and The Daily Telegraph.)

He wrote in the first chapter of this 2008 book, “We are lucky to live in an age in which the techniques available for evaluating the truth or falsehood of claims about science and history are more reliable than ever before. Yet, disturbingly, we are witnessing a huge surge in the popularity of propositions that fail basic empirical tests. The essence of counterknowledge is that it purports to be knowledge but is NOT knowledge. Its claims can be shown to be untrue… It misrepresents reality (deliberately or otherwise) by presenting non-facts as facts.” (Pg. 1-2)

Later, he adds, “Pedlars of counterknowledge often insist that their ideas should be taken seriously because ‘no one has been able to come up with a better explanation’ for whatever mystery they have lighted upon…[But the] fact that a subject is genuinely puzzling, that there are vast gaps in our understanding of it, does not lower the standard of evidence we require to fill in the gaps… you do not need to be 99.0000 percent certain that a claim is false to label it as counterknowledge… Almost every big social change of the last thirty years has contributed to the accretion of counterknowledge.” (Pg. 14-15)

He explains, “you might say: how can I be confident that ID [Intelligent Design] is counterknowledge when many of [Michael] Behe’s arguments… are too technical for me to follow?” My answer is that … I am taking the word of scientists on trust… when scrupulous researchers overwhelmingly agree that a particular claim is a statement of fact, the probability that they are right is extremely high.” (Pg. 28)

He states, “The continued vigor of Creationism owes more to technology than to traditional religious revivalism. Independent sources create custom-designed material that shoots through cyberspace and the ether, where it is picked up by ordinary people, religious and ethnic minorities, oddballs, cultists, maverick academics and fanatics.” (Pg. 35)

He observes, “For most of the twentieth century … the more ambitious the ‘alternative’ history, the smaller its following. The field became known as ‘cult archaeology’ because its practitioners behaved as it they themselves had been initiated into a secret society. The connections may be invisible, but they are always there, just beneath the surface, they told each other… Nobody would have believed, fifty years ago, that the authors of badly written pseudohistory would routinely sell more than a million copies of their books…” (Pg. 57)

He notes, “In 2007, Routledge, one of the leading academic publishers in Britain and America, published ‘The History of Africa’ by Molefi Kete Asante… His new book is intended as a standard text for undergraduates on both sides of the Atlantic. What should alarm us is that its account of early African history is rooted in pseudohistory…” (Pg. 65-66)

He asserts, “quackery is making ever deeper inroads into healthcare. An industry worth billions of pounds of built around treatments or therapies that are based on claims that can be shown to be false or for which there is no evidence… Nearly all quacks shelter under the umbrella of complementary and alternative medicine, often referred to as CAM… the simple truth is that most such medicine is ‘alternative’ for a good reason: it doesn’t work.” (Pg. 72-73) He continues, “The reason unorthodox medicines, supplements and therapies so often match the placebo effect is simple: they ARE placebos… their product may possibly have a beneficial effect---but not as a result of anything that the product contains.” (Pg. 74-75)

He observes, “Some of the brightest and most dynamic people in Western society make a living from counterknowledge… These counterknowledge entrepreneurs may or may not believe their own claims, but the successful ones all have an instinctive understanding of how social epidemics work. They are… ‘connectors,’ people with a special gift for bringing the world together.” (Pg. 94)

He suggests, “we can … observe the social processes that create space for counterknowledge. Consider the following statistics. Between 1980 and 2005, British church attendance fell from 4.7 million to 3.3 million. Membership of political parties has fallen from 3.5 million in the 1950s to around 0.5 million. The number of weddings in the UK dropped from 480,000 in 1972 to 284,000 in 2005, Each of these trends reflects the fragmentation of traditional authority structures---churches, political parties and the two-parent family---that previous generations rarely questioned… And every change brings with it new possibilities that are both liberating and a burden. The subjective side of human experience takes over from the objective.” (Pg. 118-119)

He points out, “The free market likes counterknowledge. The troubled newspaper industry… increasingly relies on fascinating but untrue stories to sell papers. Specialist reporters are becoming an expensive luxury… Counterknowledge, unconstrained by inconvenient facts, enables the media to repackage real life into ‘mysteries.’ Fact is presented to us as entertainment---and, increasingly… entertainment is presented to us as fact.” (Pg. 124)

He concludes, “We can almost certainly do nothing about the circulation of counterknowledge on the internet. The fragmentation of shared knowledge into personalized truths began centuries ago; digital technology has merely speeded it up. But this… does not relieve us of the responsibility to base judgments on the evidence of our senses… We must hold to account the greedy, lazy and politically correct guardians of intellectual orthodoxy who have turned their backs on the methodology that enables us to distinguish fact from fantasy. It will be their fault if the sleep of reason brings forth monsters.” (Pg. 138-139)

The book would have been much improved, if the author had actually presented some EVIDENCE against these unconventional ideas, rather than just ‘trusting authority.’

[Pixie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this age of dis- & mis- information, fake news, deep fake pics, misleading & biased stories, this book, written in 2008, sounds the warning bell on it all. The author fairly successfully debunks many modern-day conspiracy theories, takes a huge whack at 'mumbo-jumbo snake-oil merchants' which include slimming & dieting & nutrition advisors, along with New Age Gurus, vaccination deniers, Creationism websites, and many more 'lies'. New to me was his discussion of Pseudo-history and what he actually means by Counter-knowledge, the book is well worth a read to understand this and see how permeated the media culture has become & how self-fulfilling it is. He doesn't touch on online scams such as we now have presently but much of his message rings true for today and the future. I was surprised how borderline I was on 'believing' some of the conspiracy theories, thinking that having an open mind about news events is preferable to not just condemning it immediately, now I am not so sure!

[Kimberly Mccune · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think Thompson's tone can be brilliantly summed up in this paragraph *of his own writing*:

"What sort of history professor can get away with such sloppiness? The answer is, an Afrocentric professor who does not believe that ‘African’ historians (by which he means anyone of African ancestry, however distant) should be constrained by ‘European’ conventions (by which he means methodological rigour). Moreover, Asante holds extreme views about the right of white professors to teach black American history: they can only do so if they work from an African-American perspective. Most white professors ‘do not have the proper orientation to adequately teach any African-American studies,’ he writes. ‘They tend to be off on either orientation, facts, pedagogical skill, or humility.’ Try switching around ‘black’ and ‘white’ and substituting ‘European’ for ‘African-American’ and it becomes clear what a breathtakingly offensive position this is."

[֍ elle ֍ · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know that image macro of "old man yells at clouds?" It's like that, but instead of at clouds, it's at you, in twenty-page installments

Spurious claims found in the details and hypocritical chastisement of others for faulty source-work while helping itself to more than its fair share.
And that’s all when I choose to generously overlook misrepresentations of things that author distorts for the sake of feeding his invective.

Don't bother reading it. There's better books out there on the same subject that are better researched and exhibiting better control of his subject on the part of the author. This seems like an angrily worded letter that just spun out of control when the author decided to aim scattershot at anything and anyone else that had pissed him off in recent memory.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview - lacks the depth I was expecting but still a well-written introduction to conspiracy culture, produced whilst the internet was first starting to play its part in the current 'fake news' epidemic.

[Lisa Blackburn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slim, frequently entertaining look at the kind of false knowledge that clutters society and makes us all a bit more stupid, marred by being itself short on facts and heavily filtered through an unexamined right-wing filter.

[Stephanie Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book reeks of the same confirmation bias that the author cautions against. I also found some passages to be more then a little racist.

[Monte · Rating 4 out of 5]

We are drowning in a sea of lies and fakery, aided and abetted by the Internet culture's anything-goes mentality, warns Thompson (Waiting for Antichrist, 2005, etc.).In this slim but tough-minded book, the editor in chief of Britain's Catholic Herald newspaper argues that the Web-enabled proliferation of alternative theories and speculations challenging orthodox beliefs on everything from evolution to 9/11 are nothing short of a looming disaster for civilization. Thompson takes a cold chisel to the fatuous bubbles of pseudo-theories proliferating in the modern mediascape, to devastating effect. Defining counterknowledge as "misinformation packaged to look like fact," he begins to dismantle some of its more popular examples. Keeping his prose cool and level-headed, the author debunks theories ranging from the idea that the U.S. government was behind 9/11 to the surprisingly popular belief that the Chinese (among a host of other nations) landed in North America before Columbus. Not coming from any easily deducible ideological angle, Thompson passionately defends nothing more complicated than factual truth, a concept in danger of being swept away by "a pandemic of credulous thinking." He pushes aside the baseless "theories" behind alternative-medicine hokum and intelligent design by doing something he calls "deeply unfashionable": assuming that when a large number of scientists from varied backgrounds all state something as a proven fact based on empirical evidence, it probably is correct. Showing that fringe quackery has charged unchallenged into the mainstream media and begun bellowing unproven beliefs (Vaccines cause autism! Aromatherapy cures cancer!) to a conspiracy-prone public, Thompson portrays a culture dangerously close to losing touch with reality.The only thing to complain about with this illuminating book is that it isn't long enough to irrefutably knock down each of the baseless ideas the author discusses

[Abhinav · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strictly 3 stars. Not half a star more, not half a star less.

It took me some time to decide in which genre exactly I'd place this book after I was done reading it. And after much thought, I settled upon 'socio-political commentary'.

To start with what's good about this book - it takes up the responsibility of bashing up conspiracy theorists, bogus historians, quack medicine practitioners & anti-Darwin theorists. Without sounding anti-Islamic, he rightly states that Islamic studies desperately need an 'enlightenment' - since some of the misconceptions held by their scholars are quite startling. He also takes up the case against 'Creationists', whose number seems to be increasing with every passing day & mercilessly quashes their doubts about Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Most of the arguments put forward by this book on the mentioned subjects ring true & it's imperative that people realise how counterknowledge tends to make way into our lives without us even realising it.

Alas, it could've been so much more. This book manages to dent its chances of getting a higher rating, thanks to the writer managing to contradict his own aforementioned arguments more than once. He also refuses to take a proper stand on religion - a subject on which a whole chapter could've been written. (Worth noting that the author was the editor of The Catholic Herald at the time of writing.) Besides that, he seems to take too extremist a view on forms of alternative medicine such as homeopathy (dismisses outright as quack) & conventional medicine including Ayurveda. He refuses to accept the fact that even these methods often work for many people, who are satisfied with the results of such medication.

Nevertheless, 'Counterknowledge' is a short, precise & well-written book that makes just the right amount of noise to make it worth the time & effort.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

In many ways this is a complementary volume to Andrew Keen's 2007 book The Cult of the Amateur and, going back a little earlier, Francis Wheen's 2004 polemic How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World: all three are concerned with how, in the name of in other contexts laudable principles like democracy and freedom of speech, we're selling out to the ignorant, the biased, the secret corporation shills, the bullies, and the batshit crazy. It's a fairly short book, and it romps lightly and very readably through a limited set of areas in which public knowledge is being devastated by other people's agendas. Much of this material has been covered in greater depth elsewhere; this is no hostile criticism, because Thompson's book serves as an ideal introduction for those who haven't read the fuller treatments. What makes this book valuable, though, is Thompson's refusal to be browbeaten by political correctness; or, at least, the blanket application of that concept to stuff that people would rather not admit. His treatment of the mangling of science and promotion of rankest pseudoscience in the Islamic cultures is especially enlightening (it led me to Pervez Hoodbhoy's much more detailed treatment in Islam and Science), as is his demolition of "Afrocentric history", far too much of which is plain mythology (I rushed out and bought Mary Lefkowitz's Not Out of Africa for a more detailed treatment, and should be reading it shortly). His discussion of HIV/AIDS-denialism is also good.

And sometimes it's funny, too.

[Jeremiah Genest · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was going along okay, not the best I had read on the topic but tolerable. To be fair, the author's British perspective was refreshing on many of the issues he decided to cover (by no means a comprehensive one, for example he ignores climate change deniers). His coverage of intelligent design among Muslim groups was new to me, though I should have become suspicious at this point about his manner of blaming the "leftist" press. And then it came together in the final chapter where the author rails against the left for being the reason for counterknowledge spreading with all their dismantling of institutions and authority. Yep, he blames feminist literary criticism pretty much for spreading misinformation about vaccines. This is when I threw the book across the room.

There are much better books on the topic with fewer axes to grind and a better understanding of the history and sociology of the topic. This could have been a good popular book on the subject but instead it turned out to be a litany of tired tirades about the death of western institutions. Cause you know, western institutions always protected us so well against junk science and junk history. I find it immensely ironic that a book called counter knowledge could be so sexist and racist.

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author warns us: 'Credulous thinking is spreading through society as fast and silently as a virus, and no one has a clue how long the epidemic will last'. Indeed and, such book is therefore more than welcomed, just because it is an attempt among others to debunk all the bullshit circling around -from alternative medicine to conspiracy theories and fake history to creationism. That Damian Thompson here points fingers and laughs surely is very enjoyable and entertaining. However, as for his goal of answering the question regarding how and why we came to such triumphing mumbo jumbo, I have to admit that, he delivers a poor essay. He hints at some serious issues (postmodernism and its fallacious legacy, the shameful agendas and converging interests of some businesses and institutions with quacks and other cranks, the tireless lobbying of ideologically motivated people, doubtful egalitarianism etc.) but, sadly, he never really dwells deeply into his subject. The whole in the end is just one of those fast read, far too light on an issue too serious to be thus treated. A good overview and some nice hints but, not as deep as I wished it could be.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would actually rate this book a 2 1/2. It definitely makes one think about the seemingly endless information swirling around that gets a foothold with a large segment of the population even though it is largely unchallenged in terms of scientific rigor. This view feeds into my fear (perhaps also counterknowledge?) that the world is becoming, generally speaking, less educated even though so many now have access to "information". Though parts of the world do have greater access to books, the internet, television, etc., is the benefit at least partially outweighed because the information consumed is often either less accurate or, at the very least, watered down because of the competing theories and misninformation that now has a forum? Though I don't agree with the conservative perspective of the author, I did enjoy the read. The book could have been greatly improved for me if the author had been able to 1 - set aside his own conservative belief system, and 2 - provided some key facts to support the information he presents as truth.