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Monday 5 December 2011

Review: 'Lies, Damned Lies and Science' by Sherry Seethaler

I'm not quite sure who the intended audience is for this one. It's a serious and deeply worthy look at how to make sense of the scientific and pseudo-scientific claims in the media, which is probably too heavy for the average curious Joe Public, and not news for anyone already scientifically minded. There are a lot of interesting examples in here, and it's well researched, but the text in-between which explains the general principles is very dry and I often found myself skipping paragraphs. It would suit a teacher looking for real-world examples to explain statistics or psychology or even aspects of politics (the book touches on all of these). I got it for free, somehow (it's quite expensive now), so I'm inclined to be charitable; three stars.

1 comment:

  1. i agree with you on this one. i found it painfully boring! In chapter one Seethlar states that “waffling is annoying” and half way through chapter two (most chapters actually) all I could think was “why yes Sherry waffling is annoying! Have you read your book?”

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