BOOK OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2019

Title         : Anti-Science and 
                   the Assault on Democracy:
                   Defending Reason in a Free Society
Editors    : M. J. Thompson, G. R. Smulewicz-Zucker
Pages       : 303
Price        : $ 26.00
ISBN        : 9781633884748
Publisher : Prometheus Books
 
The defense of creationism and resistance to the realities of climate change, for example, threaten both the capacity of the next generation to comprehend and employ rational arguments as well as its ability to confront the ways anti-science worldviews prevent us from dealing with environmental crises. In effect, postmodern theories on the Left and religiously influenced policy proposals on the Right have become unlikely allies with one another, even if not in intent.

For these reasons, the essays in this book, Anti-Science and the Assault on Democracy:Defending Reason in a Free Society put a particular emphasis on the political implications of anti- science thought, while the older 'science wars' were conducted around more philosophical questions of method and epistemology. The new realities of anti-science policy, the withdrawal of funding from agencies that rely on the sciences, the effort to redesign school curricula, and many related concerns, speak to a political terrain in which anti- science views are reshaping our institutions, our culture, and our sensibilities.
 
With these new realities in mind, the basic question and problem the essays assembled here seek to examine is the extent to which we can draw upon the relationship between science and democracy. More specifically, we want to explore the ways that science, as an attitude as well as an epistemic style of thought, is in retreat in modern societies. We therefore seek not only to polemically critique the anti-scientific cast of different features of modern culture and politics, but also to stake out a defense of rational, scientific dimensions to democratic life and a democratic society.

Excerpt of the book, Courtesy: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com